Site appears to rank very low

[QbicIS]

Hi,

A site we manage is ranking very low for it's main key phrases.  The site is www.moremouse.com.

For example for the phrase "orlando vacation rentals" it ranks around page 12 which seems very low considering the DA, PA, links, etc. compared to many sites ranking much much higher.

Can anyone see anything obvious that is causing it to rank so low?

Thanks

Pete

[bjs2010]

My guess is that the anchor text used in the linking domains is an exact match for the term you are trying to rank for:http://moz.com/researchtools/ose/anchors?page=3&site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.moremouse.com

I would check in Google Webmaster Tools to see if your site has been penalized.

[Zippy-Bungle]

It looks to me that

• the only use of Orlando Vacation Rentals is in the Title
• No use in body
• No H2
• No use in image ALT tags
• only 320 words - possibly too short for something this competitive...

I'm rubbish at reading html but there are probably a few more where those came from.

Why not create a new landing page - www.moremouse.com/orlando-vacation-rentals - and optimise it for this phrase. Don't include it in the navigation but make sure it is in the site map so it gets indexed.

Sure the page authority will be lower but if you track the keyword on Moz you will see how the ranking switches from one page to another as the on page works better

[QbicIS]

Thanks for your reply .  Some of the anchor text is exact but so is that of many competitors that rank much higher.

I have already checked Webmaster Tools and cannot see any issues at all.

[ecommercebc]

Hey,

I'm actually looking at holidaying in Orlando, so this is super handy for me!

I'm just having a look at your backlinks and it seems like there's quite a bit of comment spam, for example, this one from May 2014: http://www.buildings.com/buzz/buildings-buzz/entryid/51/a-breath-of-fresh-air-why-and-how-to-improve-indoor-air-quality.aspx There's another one here from May: http://tempedit.outotec.com/en/Careers/Job-rotation-blog/Dates/2013/3/A-regular-day-with-the-Lady/

Are these comments something your team would be creating?

[QbicIS]

They have been created by someone else connected to the site.  Do you think they will be hurting the site this much?

[ecommercebc]

I definitely wouldn't rule it out, if there's been a big spike in these then it could impact your rankings. Especially as it's quite spammy and there's a lot of over-optimised anchor text (on OSE I'm seeing more variations "orlando vacation" + rent compared to your brand name). Have you experienced any drops in traffic since May?

[QbicIS]

No significant drop.  The rankings were poor before then.

[ecommercebc]

I'd definitely suggest putting stoppers on the comments before you get hit by something, as that linkbuilding resource could be placed more strategically elsewhere. Even though it looks like a lot of these pages have high DA/PA value, if the links you're getting from them are comment spam, I personally wouldn't really count them as adding long-term positive value to your website.

Out of the links you have to your site, how many would you say are comments/bought vs natural? I can see some great citations like http://traveltips.usatoday.com/vacation-homes-within-4-miles-disney-world-29718.html

But there's some really dodgy looking things like: http://www.cxotoday.com/story/leadership-notes-the-art-of-listening-with-empathy/

Chances are, if the bulk of your links are comment spam then you might have issues ranking. Building more natural links and following the advice of Zippy-Bungle (which is an amazing username to type out) would help.

[QbicIS]

To be honest that is hard for me to answer as I do not know how many links were requested by the other person.

I will get the comment links stopped ASAP and take yours and Zippy-Bungles advice.

Thanks for your help.

[ecommercebc]

You're in a good position with the site, because as far as I can see the business is well-liked and referenced. Definitely try and put the dampeners on those comment links and if you can, recommend re-investing budget in a more natural linkbuilding strategy that matches up to the calibre of the business. I appreciate this can be tricky though if it's a third party building those links.

I think for the next few months I'd concentrate on improving the content on-site and using digital PR (definitely not press releases, but buzzworthy articles/content that people want to share) to build brand links. Hopefully the comment spam will be outweighed by those, if not a few guys here more experienced with disavows can advise if this is necessary.