MOZ Onpage grade and Google ranking.

[gheh2013]

I have found for years that there is not necessarily any connection between the onpage given by Moz and the SEO ranking. "F" page can be #1 in Google for long periods of time, and "A" pages can be unranked. I do not see the consistency, so I am unsure how much time to spend optimizing as suggested.

I know there are many factors in rankings, but I just wanted to point out that this lack of consistency makes me hesitate to make changes to well-ranking pages -- especially with algorithm changes happening all the time. It seems that everything is considered over-optimization of late, even if it is all natural language. It is hard to NOT use words or synonyms sometimes on pages, for example...

Thank you for your great product. I just want to know how my time to spend on this matter or turn my attention to off-page factors where the inconsistency is hard to figure out.

[Moz.HelpTeam]

Hey there,
And thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give some insight into why Moz believes On-Page grades matter to our users. From an SEO perspective it is possible for a page to rank well with a low On-Page grade if the keyword being optimized for is not especially competitive. The decision to improve the grade for high ranking pages is still a judgment call and often comes down to risk assessment with regards to other, better optimized pages, competing for that same topic. I've also included some additional insight into how we determine On-Page grades at Moz along with some more details on search engine ranking factors.

http://moz.com/help/guides/search-overview/on-page-optimization
http://moz.com/search-ranking-factors

If you have any additional questions please feel free to follow-up with our Help team -- help@moz.com

Cheers!
Tyler Murray
Engineering Manager

[WhoWuddaThunk]

Website Grader just analyzes the presence of specific tags and sections.  It doesn't analyze the overall quality and effectiveness of the page.

Meaning, I can get an "A" and make a page not rank very easily, as well as being able to get a page to rank decently while still getting an "F."  It all depends on how competitive the vertical is, and how authoritative my domain is.