Organic #1, exact same copywrite/meta

[Kyrton]

Hi again !
(new seo student)

So I am looking at a competitor in the area and I have 1 company who is ranking #1 organic at many locations for a specific service, while using the same copy write and meta information. The only difference between them at all is the location. They are using .php for these pages.


I would like to understand how they where able to rank so well. I was under the impression that having a unique landing page/meta for each city + service was the better way to go.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

We would need to see the real world example (keyword you're searching, your website, competitor website, etc.) to be able to help.

 

[Kyrton]

Thank you Joshua for the reply.

Honestly, I am business owner who is studying the many aspects of SEO for my own knowledge and to be an informed client once I am able to hire someone. (this summer)

The searched terms I used are:
panel upgrade annapolis
panel upgrade bowie
panel upgrade alexandria
panel upgrade college park

Also ranking # 1-2 for "heavy up" in those same cities

I thought google would have bumped them down as each page is exactly the same with only the city name being different. There is more original copy/metas from Kolb electric, who I would have thought to rank higher.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Thank you Joshua for the reply.

Honestly, I am business owner who is studying the many aspects of SEO for my own knowledge and to be an informed client once I am able to hire someone. (this summer)

The searched terms I used are:
panel upgrade annapolis
panel upgrade bowie
panel upgrade alexandria
panel upgrade college park

Also ranking # 1-2 for "heavy up" in those same cities

I thought google would have bumped them down as each page is exactly the same with only the city name being different. There is more original copy/metas from Kolb electric, who I would have thought to rank higher.

Hey Kyrton,

Since we're in different locations and we have a different search history, I do need the name of the competing website you're talking about considering we might be seeing different rankings.

 

[Kyrton]

Sorry for the delay.

Heavy Up Annapolis
College Park

 

[JoyHawkins]

I would say the pages are ranking well probably because it's a fairly noncompetitive search results page. If a personal injury lawyer tried this strategy, it probably wouldn't work.

You are correct that Google actively fights against these types of things but that doesn't mean they catch them all. Far from it. I've seen tons of sites rank tremendously using this strategy but as Google gets smarter and changes their algorithms, we keep seeing these types of sites start to fail. I wouldn't risk investing in a strategy that will probably fail at some point.

 

[Rik Delta]

I'm not sure what I'm missing here.

What if you had pages like this:

The main page is an "Our Services" page with a "We Serve the Following Areas" section at the bottom that lists major towns w/ map icon

Then your other service pages are
Services in Town A
..Town B
..Town C

And all of those "town" pages specify the 'main service' page as canonical?