Blog posts outranked for Title a String searches in content...why?

[seagreen]

Site Pages:  When I wrap a page title, or a string of several words in quotes, and GG search, my client's page shows up first.  My understanding is that this shows general health of site, and acknowledgement as the original source of the content.

Blog Posts:  When I wrap a blog page, or post, title or string of words in quotes, and GG search, Feedblitz, Facebook, and other scraper sites appear before the blog home page, and also the actual blog post.  The blog is in a separate directory.  Does this suggest that the /blog/ is being penalized or demoted in any way? Does it indicate the /blog/ directory does not have authority?

Both the static site pages, and the blog pages, are using rel=canonical tags.

What causes this, what does it indicate, and how can I fix it?

Thanks,
Greg

[ToughTimesLawyer]

We need more info.  A major question is site age.  If the /blog directory is fairly new, your results are not atypical.  Also if the /blog directory is fairly new and changing the URL wouldn't damage existing SERPs too much, you might try a more descriptive directory name like /location-business type-blog.

[seagreen]

The site is 10 years old, the blog 4 or 5 years old, and has held top positions for extremely competitive keyword phrases such as 'health insurance quotes' and 'individual health insurance'.  The site was hit by penguin,  a panda, and subsequent pandas.  I successfully recovered the site from an 'unnatural links' penalty, which required the removal of a lot of links.  The site began to rank for primary keywords, but not great.  Top 50.  I saw this as an accomplishment.

I hope that helps.  I left out details initially because I was hoping someone could be able to tell me if what I am experiencing is indicative of a known issue.  Thanks for your help, happy to add more detail.