Weird rankings... I'm lost & confused...

[PierreLechelle]

Hey guys,

I've started working with this client a while back. Everything is working perfectly, we create great content, earn links and rank on a lot of interesting terms.

Except for one term... It's keyword difficulty isn't even that high: 38%. (We rank on some keywords which have 60%).

They got everything right: interesting and engaging content, a diversified backlink profile (with many organic good links), good on-page SEO but nothing can move them up.

Some websites with a lower DA & MozRank are outranking them although they don't do anything regarding their SEO except buying scrappy links.

The only thing I can see is that they transitioned to HTTPs and that plenty of their links directed to the HTTP domain. The 301 was done during the transition so I don't think we lost too much of link juice...

Please note that during the Keyword Difficulty full-report, I noticed that all their metrics are similar to the first few results in SERPs and largely outpace the others...

Any idea on what might be happening?

Thanks for your help :)!

[aarongray]

Are they ranking within the top 100 for the term at all?

Could be an Anchor issue around the term, its hard to say as can't see the team or the site.

Also I never really believe everything Moz tells me as they have the same limits as every tool out there, are you checking other tools to see if there is any other issues with the page/site.

[rjonesx. 0]

Care to share any more about the site and/or client? Feel free to PM me.

[PierreLechelle]

They're ranking between the 15 to 25 position. They just never moved on from the 15th position...

I checked SEMRush, SpyFu, GWT, GA, Screaming Frog...

[PierreLechelle]

PM Sent ;)!

[aarongray]

I would look at ahrefs and check Anchors and also if its not moving it might be just a link volume issue for that keyword.

Have you checked to see if there is any errors with HTTP?

This website is really good for checking HTTP errors.

http://www.webconfs.com/http-header-check.php

[PierreLechelle]

No errors with the HTTPS.

Checked Ahrefs: very few direct anchors. Most anchors are on their real name from big publications and other websites citing the company... These websites always write topic-relevant content (and include the keyword close to the anchor).

I'm desperate with this client