Why Some Pages Rank Faster Than Others on the Same Website

When checking the rankings of your website on Google, you likely noticed something strange about how quickly one page ranks while another page ranks too slowly. For example, two pages could be from the common domain and the same cheap SSD web hosting account, yet experience vastly different degrees of ranking over time.

It isn't as simple as it looks. You can't just assume search engines treat every page the same; there is actually a lot more going on behind the scenes. In this blog, let’s learn why there’s a difference between the page rankings of the same website even when you have the same best PHP hosting.

1. Search Intent Alignment

The first thing is the alignment of search intent. Pages that go with the flow of the user’s intent typically see an increase in speed of ranking. Google assesses how well a piece of content meets a searcher's query. This includes measuring the relevancy, structure, and context of the content.

 

As an example, a page that provides an in-depth answer to a specific question gains more traction quickly than a generic eCommerce page on your website. Additionally, if a page has a specific focus (i.e., long-tail keywords or niche queries), it can achieve greater success in ranking due to less competition. Therefore, it is much easier to establish relevancy with Google for such web pages.

 

However, this can also backfire; more content isn't always better. If you write too much, the reader might lose interest or miss the actual answer.

Example:

Question: "Does this hosting plan include a free SSL?"

Good Answer: "Yes, all our plans include a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate."

Writing long paragraphs and detailed explanations will just annoy the visitor or waste their time.

2. Internal Linking Structure

Internal link signals are one of the strongest indicators for Google to establish the importance of any given page on your website. Pages with strong internal links coming from your home page, category pages, or high-authority pages tend to be crawled and indexed at a rapid rate.

 

As web pages are buried deep within your website's structure, they are often difficult for search engines to find. Therefore, such pages take longer to be discovered by search engines if there are few or no internal links. The way you structure internal linking across your website allows distribution of authority across your website.

3. High-Quality and Comprehensive Content

As a rule of thumb, pages with high-quality and comprehensive content support the fastest rank on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Google looks for websites that have real valuable, well-structured, and exhaustive content in its ranking determination. The longer a site page takes to gain authority results from thin, duplicate, and/or superficial content.

 

Small differences in readability, multimedia usage, and semantic structure affect the speed of the individual URLs to top the search results page. In many instances, pages that provide a wealth of examples, structured headings, and visuals relevant to the topic rank higher than the same text-only-based site page.

4. Page Authority and Backlinks

Inbound links are our biggest asset for gaining rank on SERPs. Pages that naturally attract backlinks from other sites accumulate page authority at a faster rate, thus indicating to Google the value of your web page content.

 

In many cases, new pages and those without backlinks account for the low ranks, even though the pages have a higher authority domain. Conversely, pages with a strong logical link structure allow for rapid rank increase, thus treating the page as a "trusted and relevant" site page by search engines.

5. Technical Factors for SEO

Technical aspects determine the speed with which your site ranks. Sites with lower load times, mobile-friendly designs, proper meta tags, and well-formatted URLs generally are indexed and ranked faster than unoptimized sites.

 

Your site's crawlability is important; pages blocked by robots.txt, marked "noindex," or marked as duplicate canonical have longer delay times for indexing or lower rankings as a result of crawlability issues. Marking up structured data, such as schema markup, assists Google in determining the page content effectively, and, therefore, generally enables faster indexing and ranking.

6. Keyword Competition and Difficulty

The level of competition associated with specific keywords also influences how fast your web page will rank for those keywords. A page that targets a very competitive keyword will take significantly longer than a page targeting lower-competition/long-tail keywords to rank.

 

You should understand each page's level of keyword difficulty so you can set realistic ranking expectations. Pages on the same website may target very competitive or very low-competition keywords. Moreover, some pages are likely to be rewarded by search engines sooner than others.

Summary

Google considers some pages more valuable than others when ranking them within a search result. Therefore, any page needs to be recognized for its content quality, internal linking structure, user intent, backlinks, technical SEO, and competitors to rank quickly.

 

Therefore, webmasters and business owners should focus on optimizing their sites strategically. Create not only appropriate internal link structures between sites but also ensure pages are optimized for relevant keywords with high-quality content and optimally adhere to established technical SEO standards.

 

By learning which factors contribute to the faster ranking of specific pages, any individual can implement this learning across all of the web pages, thus improving overall SEO performance for that website.