SERPception: story of an indexed internal search results page - BrightonSEO 2021
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SERPception: story of an indexed internal search results page - BrightonSEO 2021
•0 likes•187 views
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Google normally doesn’t like internal SERPs within its SERPs. Yet, we stumbled upon a strange phenomenon: an internal search results page was indexed instead of a dedicated category page. To make things even stranger, this internal search results page ranked remarkably well on the first page of Google. So we started to dig into it in order to find the underlying reason. And we found it.
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SERPception: story of an indexed internal search results page - BrightonSEO 2021
- 1. SERPception: story of an indexed internal search results page Csaba Szabo // Klikkmánia BrightonSEO 2021
- 2. Who is this guy?🤔 SEO manager and team leader at Klikkmánia Ltd. On the SEO field for 2 yrs
- 3. Sometimes we SEOs see some quite unexplainable phenomena..
- 4. It takes just a little bit of...okay, a TON OF analysis
- 5. ...but at some point we finally see it😌
- 6. The problem: why?? Dedicated category page Internal search results page
- 7. The client: a Hungarian job posting site
- 9. Primary source of organic traffic: list pages ( = category pages)
- 11. One day...
- 12. Focus keyword: ‘diákmunka’ (ENG: student work, student job)
- 13. A ‘fat head’ keyword Avg. monthly searches: 22 500 (HUN market)
- 14. Target audience: high school students (16-18 year-old users, Gen Z mostly)
- 15. Here it is!
- 19. Why was it a problem for the client? A: Less direct control over the page (internal linking, highlighted jobs etc.)
- 23. The Analysis: pagespeed and indexation
- 24. I.S.R.P. Category p. (Internal search results page) 23/100 12/100
- 25. IMPORTANT! The site didn’t have a sitemap at the time of the analysis.
- 26. Which SEO elements WEREN’T the root cause? No noindex tag No robots.txt exclusion No nofollow tag
- 27. PLOT TWIST The category page was actually indexed…🤦♂ ...but generated zero traffic, and wasn’t ranking for the focus keyword at all.
- 29. = ‘kfc order kecskemét’ = ‘kfc opening szigetszentmiklós’
- 30. Why did Google deem the internal search results page more useful for the target audience?🤔
- 32. Category p. I.S.R.P. 173 169 Number of available student job offers? V
- 33. I.S.R.P. Category p. # of times ‘diákmunka’ kw appeared on the page? 29 times 95 times
- 34. # of times ‘diákmunka’ kw appeared in the H2 headings? I.S.R.P. Category p. 4 times 20 times
- 36. TF-IDF score for ‘diákmunka’ I.S.R.P. Category p. 0.58 (avg.: 0.54) 0.73 (avg.: 0.54)
- 37. Was there any content about student jobs in general? I.S.R.P. Category p. Yes No
- 38. The Analysis: other relevant (non-SEO) elements
- 39. Category p. I.S.R.P. Yes No Was the query highlighted in the available job offers?
- 41. Category p. I.S.R.P. Yes, some Yes, a LOT Were there any internship offers present?
- 42. Why the presence of internship offers is a problem? A: different target audience !!! (High school students vs. university students (20-23 year-olds))
- 44. I.S.R.P. Category p. Page Authority (Moz) Trust Flow 31/100 33/100 0 23
- 45. I.S.R.P. Category p. # of backlinks (Moz) # of backlinks (Majestic) 4 11 0 14
- 46. Let’s revise the situation from the algorithm’s perspective!
- 47. Users are looking for available student jobs, as many opportunities as possible Which page will Google pick? Users: Gen Z, high school students (age: 16-18) Mobile savvy + notoriously impatient, especially when it comes to pagespeed Which page will help the target audience more?
- 48. I.S.R.P. Category page Less available job offers The focus kw appears 29 times H2 = a job offer - the query appears 4 times H2 = a job offer - the query appears 20 times The focus kw appears 95 times Slightly more available offers The page loads slowly on mobile The page loads slowly on mobile, but slightly faster
- 49. I.S.R.P. Category page Less available job offers The focus kw appears 29 times H2 = a job offer - the query appears 4 times H2 = a job offer - the query appears 20 times The focus kw appears 95 times Slightly more available offers The page loads slowly on mobile The page loads slowly on mobile, but slightly faster
- 50. So all in all, why did Google pick the internal search results page over the category page?
- 51. Google picked the internal search results page, because in the algorithm’s logic (!) the target audience has more and better opportunities of finding a job on it than on the category page. Plus, it’s slightly more user-friendly.
- 52. How could it happen? - clash of algorithms Internal ranking algorithm Internal search algorithm relevancy matching maximizing the business goals
- 53. I.S.R.P. Google
- 54. What did the client do? A: they simply changed the link _(ツ)_/¯
- 55. The moral of the story