Wrong page ranking for keyword - should I move the better content over?

[DemiGR]

We have a page which is outranking another page for a keyword that is very important.  The page that is lower in the rankings has far better content. I think this is happening due to links as well as the url structure.

domain.com/ranking/notranking

Here is the page we want to rank: http://bit.ly/1vqhSoZ

Here is the page that is higher in rankings: http://bit.ly/1vA1wXQ

So I think I should just move the content over from /notranking, to /ranking.  The content is clearly better on the lower ranking page but I think due to links the /ranking page is higher in SERPS.  So I guess my question is, would it be wise to move all that content over, and then 301 redirect the old page? Or leave the way it is and hopefully Google will get it right over time?

[trung.ngo]

Hey there,

Based on Open SIte Explorer, there are no external inbound links pointing to either pages; and there are 3 and 5 internal links pointing to each page. So my guess is that it is not a matter of link equity.

One major difference that I can see from the data is that the page that is ranking has a lot more social shares than the page not ranking. And therefore, has probably gotten more visits and activity, which may lead Google to believe that it is the better page for that topic.

In this case, I think consolidating the content would make sense; essentially, updating the ranking page so that it has more comprehensive information about the loan forgiveness program. And, unless you need the page that isn't ranking for other purposes, you will probably want to 301 redirect the page as you've mentioned.

-Trung

[sachin-sv]

Hi DemiGR,

I would recommend you to read this post written by Rand- http://moz.com/blog/wrong-page-ranking-in-the-results-6-common-causes-5-solutions

BTW what is the keyword you are talking about? Have you checked Title & other meta tags to make sure if the desired page is optimized for the targeted keywords rather than the other one?

• Sachin

[MonicaOConnor]

I am not sure of the kw you want to rank for, but the on page optimization on the second page is much better than the first, while the layout of the first page is way better than the layout of the second page.

According to Moz (the fancy Moz Toolbar) these pages are very similar. A test you can do is to swap the Meta Data on the two pages, wait about 2 weeks to make sure they get crawled and then see what happens.

You can also optimize your internal links a little to put more juice to the page you want to rank. Depending on the keyword, this can help. How old are these two URLs? The difference could just be the age.

If you intend to permanently get rid of that second page, you can redirect it and the added juice might push the second page up to where you want it. However, if both of these pages serve a purpose somewhere I would not do that.

[katandmouse]

I see that page ranking for both "student loan forgiveness" and "loan forgiveness." So it looks like you accomplished your goal but may have in the process gotten the wrong page to rank now for "loan forgiveness." Can you give us an update? What did you do? Of did Google change its mind?