Ranking in SERPs but not using terms on website.

[lee-murphy]

As far as I know, it's not normally possible for a website to rank for a keyword that is not mentioned on the website. I have seen a website that ranks very well for key terms and yet they are not mentioned anywhere on the website, I have run advanced search & checked using tools including cloak checker on my findings.

How can this be?

[Direct_Ram]

assuming you are referring to Google ranking.

Google's algorithm and technology is more advanced than just "actual " keywords, but also understands related keywords. you could be ranking due to this.

If you are not ranking for the keywords you are aiming for, check for over optimisation on your website.. or even under optimisation..

R

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I would agree Direct here - Google looks at topics and variations of keywords, so you may be ranking for variation terms, or what Google thinks are variation terms.

A few questions:
Are the terms you are ranking for related to your site, industry, or content in any way? Even loosely?
Are the terms you are ranking for high level or very broad? Or are they granular?
Have you looked at your backlinks and anchor text?
Are you ranking at all for the keywords/queries you want to be ranking for?
Have you been regularly checking your Search Console queries?

I would look into your on-site SEO and content to see what may be causing your issue. You may be producing content in a way that's confusing search engines or users.

Take a look at the resources above and let me know if they help at all - good luck!

[ClaytonJ]

Intriguing love these problems.

The above two answers likely have it covered - on the off chance have you checked their referring domains - could they have bought a domain that ranked for those keywords and then done a 301 re-direct. Somehow the devaluation for relevance has been missed by google.

[lee-murphy]

Valid information from all contributors thanks.

The site is related to the key terms however these are specific competitor multiple brands key terms which seems to rank very well for considering the brands aren't mentioned on the website.

I've checked backlinks, anchor texts, internal site search etc and nothing coming up for the brand terms and yet rank well. Trying to figure out how this is possible...

[mememax]

Hi Lee,

without being able to double check keywords on that particular domain I suggest two possible factors working on google that you may be overlooking:

• hummingbird engine and semantic search. Google is trying to get the searchers intent not just plain keywords. Is possible that the site you're seeing is being highly related with the market they are thus getting a boost in all terms related to that topic.

• google bombing. this is something it used to work and even if some say no, it still work sometimes. Bombing was a practice to use exact anchors to give authority on a site about something without even mention that. Some people are worried about this being a possible negative seo practie and some other uses that as an optimization factor. What I can say is that google bombing could work but not as it was. As this is not related to keywords but to topic, as the linking site topic will be passed to the linked one and if that site accrues more links it vcould be possible to see it ranking for such topics.

[AlanMosley]

If I link to your website with the link text "SEO Moz" you can then rank for the term "SEO Moz" without having it on your site.