Non-relevant page outranks optimized page

[JohnA]

I have a very weird situation. I have a page, lets call it /usa-poker-sites/ and another called /poker-sites/

/usa-poker-sites/ is made to rank for keywords related to USA poker and USA poker sites.

/poker-sites/ is meant to be in general for "poker sites", "online poker sites etc.".

The pages aren't actually very similar at all, so there should be no duplicate content/Panda issue etc.

However what's strange is that /usa-poker-sites/ also ranks for the keywords targeted by /poker-sites/ . Due to the fact this page already ranks for these keywords, Google completely eliminates any ranking for /poker-sites/. When searching for these keywords /poker-sites/ page is not existing at all in search.

There doesn't seem to be any of the usual reasons why this might be so. /poker-sites/ is also a strong page, with good links etc. Yet, Google considers /usa-poker-sites/ to be the page that most suits the keywords "poker sites" and "online poker sites" and as such eliminates the /poker-sites/ page as a consequence.

Any solution or suggestion how this could be fixed?

** Names of pages and keywords are made up, but the situation is exactly as described just in a different industry.

[dfiocch]

Check for "overoptimized" incoming links to that page.
It sound to me overoptimization/Penguin issue

[JohnA]

Check for "overoptimized" incoming links to that page.
It sound to me overoptimization/Penguin issue

There aren't any.

I don't even have any optimized links at all. All the links are either ulr, site name or just random phrase inside content like "as explained in this post" etc.

Also, isn't penguin site-wide?

[Bobby Sand]

Hi John,

How does the content vary on both of these pages? It's a case of keyword cannibalisation to me. You haven't got 2 duplicate pages but you've got 2 pages with very similar content and essentially Google sees USA poker sites being extremely relative to poker sites, or online poker sites.

In any situation Google will only rank one of those pages as the terms you think you should rank separately for a too related and Google see's them as interlinked. My suggestion would be to consolidate the pages and aim to target both variations on the one page.

Hope that helps.

[wonderpunter]

You may also have more authority flowing from say home page... if you have the main link on your homepage but the other is not linked as close then the authority will flow less, and have you checked the keywords in all data centers? it maybe that you are using google ,com .. try with .co.uk see what you get

[Gamer]

Try to link both pages with each other and use the correct anchor text.
Inner link structure is also important nowadays.

[CAPcom]

Stupid penguin, Over optimization...

It's like the myth of SEO got busted in it's a** by some decent good developers who experiment a lot with google, and now that google found out "well if those smart asses think they know how our algorithm works and found out how to optimize their site for our search engine. than let's put a CAP on for Too optimized sites and now developers need to experiment to find out what percentage on average we consider too optimized" Pinky hold against the side of their mouth screaming : Muhahaha, Muhahaha, Muhahahahaaaaaaaaa