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Does Google Rankbrain not list your homepage for...

by SEOGhost
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Does Google Rankbrain not list your homepage for a certain search term if you used that search term in too many backlinks pointing to the same page (over-optimized anchor text backlinks)?

I noticed that about the last week of January, a medium/high volume competitive search term I was ranking for towards the top of page 3 on Google, I no longer rank for. Not only do I no longer rank for it, my homepage doesn't even show up ANYWHERE in the Google SERPS for that search term now! It's been like that ever since.

I did build a lot of backlinks with that exact search term anchor text pointing to my homepage when I first built my website (I didn't know any better because I was a total backlink building newbie), and now I'm wondering if Rankbrain has discovered this and took my homepage off of the SERPS completely. Also, I created a lot of backlinks on webpages that aren't really relevant to my niche when I was a newbie.

Should I go back and change the anchor text and the page all these backlinks are pointing to?
#google #homepage #list #rankbrain
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  • Profile picture of the author Tech knowledge
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    • Profile picture of the author SEOGhost
      Thanks. I figured that's what it was. I'll be going back to those pages and changing the anchor text and page they link to, or I may just delete the link altogether if the site it's on is irrelevant to my niche. By the way, I just checked this morning and Google is listing my homepage in the SERPS, but it's all the way down on page 10.
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  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    The home page does not rank, got it. Does another page on your site pop up in SERP's instead? Because, if you have a page that's a better match for the keyword, Google would show that over the home page. Which makes sense, right?
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    Google RankBrain is only a part of an algorithm - not the sole thing that causes sites to rank or not. Its purpose was to determine the intent of a search when it was not a search phrase Google had enough data on (15% of all searches are ones that Google has never seen before). For any mainstream search phrases that you are targeting, it is highly unlikely that RankBrain plays any role at all.

    Also, search engines could not care less whether it is the home page, a category page, product page or info page. Their goal is to rank the best page.
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