Page A Best for Users, but B Ranks

[khi5]

This is real estate MLS listings related. I have a page "B" with lots of unique content (MLS thumbnails mixed with guide overview writing, pictures etc) which outranks "A" which is a page simply showing MLS thumbnails with map feature included. I am linking from "B" to "A" with anchor "KEYWORD for sale" to indicate to search engines that "A" is the page I want to rank, even though "B" has more unique content. It hasn't worked so far.
Questions:

1. Should I avoid linking from "B" to "A" as that could impact how well "B" ranks?
2. Should I leave this setup and over time hope search engines will give "A" a chance to rank?
3. Include some unique content on "A" mostly not viewable without clicking "Read more" link? I don't foresee many users will click "Read more" as they are really just looking for the properties for sale and do rarely care about written material when searching for "KEYWORD for sale".
4. Should I "no index, follow" A as there are limited to none unique content and this could enhance chance of ranking better for B?
5. When I write blog posts and it includes "KEYWORD for sale" should I link to "A" (best for users) or link to "B" since that page has more potential to rank really well and still is fairly good for users?

Ranking for "B" is not creating a large bounce rate, just that "A" is even better.

Thank you,
Kristian

[TommyTan]

Hi,

1)By simply linking B to A with an anchor text won't impact B's ranking as you are only interlinking.

2)Internal linking B to A will help visitors explore more of your content and does help search engine find page A.  However,  in order to increase it's ranking, you should generate more backlinks to increase its ranking

4)If Page A is not harming your site and is not causing any duplicate content, i don't think you should noindex/nofollow it.

I think there is a bit of confusion.  First of all, is page A and B duplicate?  If they are, interlinking wouldn't solve the problem and I think you are talking about using the Canonical tag to tell search engines which page to rank.  If that's the case, it will answer most of your questions, if you tell Search Engines to crawl B over A, then you should definitely improve page B and vice versa.

Hope this answers your question.

[KeriMorgret]

An older post, but Rand has some feedback on this at http://moz.com/blog/wrong-page-ranking-in-the-results-6-common-causes-5-solutions.

[khi5]

great, thx Keri. appreciated

[GregB123]

So is "B" just the More Details page for "A"? And is there a different A,B pair for each individual property listing (A1,B1 and A2,B2 and A3,B3 and etc)?

If so, pick a few and do a little where experiment where B has a canonical tag pointing to A. I would also put a self-referential canonical tag on A pointing to itself (A), just in case there is extra junk on the end of link URLs that are pointing to A.

It will take awhile for Google to re-index. To speed it up, you can use GWMT to "Fetch as Google" the experimental B pages and do "Submit to Index". A few days after that do the same thing for the experimental A pages.

let us know if it works...

[khi5]

Hi Gregory, 
A and B are quite different. B has a lot of written content, pictures and a few MLS thumbnails and a "see all condos for sale" type link leading to "A". 
A shows 10 thumbnails per page and has a large Google integrated map and an H1 and breadcrumbs. Basically, A offers exactly what users want: quick view of property details on a thumbnails and when scroll over they can see a map with location. If click a thumbnail they are taken to the specific property. Perfect for users.
B is OK too, but the written content is mostly behind a "Read more" so users have option to read, list some thumbnails (but not many, to keep page as original and unique as possible). that is the structure and I can see search engines prefer these pages with more written content. 
If I interlink to B I imagine I will more quickly rank well because search engines like the page to start with. So if I instead interlink to A I may risk creating a scenario where A and B are both doing OK, but none are great. That is a concern I have. I am basically looking for a solution where search engines can see that all the "greatness" of B should be transferred as power to A.