Can't get in SERPs for one keyword - ideas?

Hi SEO experts,

I'm running a hobby site and using it to teach myself about SEO. So far I'm very happy with the results, but there is a keyword I just can't get, which makes me think I'm missing something.

The site is:

(well, okay, new accounts can't post URLs, fair enough. If you're curious it's "best spore creature dot com".)

I've had great success with the "best spore creature" and "best spore creatures" keywords, and recently the site moved up to #1 for "spore creatures" (past IGN, Wikipedia, the official site, etc.) I'm happy!

However, it's nowhere to be found for the keyword "Spore". I don't expect to get to the first page right away, but it's not even anywhere in the top 500 results?? This seems strange, given that it does well for the other keywords, which all include "Spore".

Google Webmaster Tools lists "spore" as #1 keyword for "In your site's content" and "In external links to your site". It doesn't show up as a phrase by itself in external links, but a whole bunch of the phrases include it.

So, I would have expected some results for "spore" just based on the site content, url, and association from all the incoming links. Does that stuff count for nothing if I don't have incoming links with the exact anchor "Spore"?

Thanks for any advice!

Search for spore creatures about 2 million results

search for spore over 21 million results.

ie at a rough guess i'd say with spore you have about an extra 19 million pages to compete with...

I agree... you are not up to this competition yet.

Thanks gazzahk and EGOL, that makes a lot of sense. I hadn't really thought about it that way.

I guess I'm a bit surprised, if it ranks 1 of 2,000,000 for one keyword, that it wouldn't at least be somewhere in the top 500 of 21 million for the other, assuming all else is equal.

I'm guessing, as well, that a single-word keyword is harder to get than a two-word phrase?

So what is the solution? More backlinks?

Actually, you guys just gave me the idea to check something:

"spore creatures" - 1 of 2,000,000
"spore creature" - 8 of 4,500,000
"creature" - ~80 of 50,900,000 (I'm not even targeting this keyword)
"creatures" - ~80 of 60,900,000 (ditto)
"spore" - not in top 500 of 22,600,000

So, yeah, I still don't get it. Why "creature" and not "spore"?

Is it possible I triggered any kind of red flag for Google somehow?

No... The number of results are just an indicator of competiveness.. nothing more. Google algo uses a combination of trust and relevance in determening SERPs. Google just must consider you site not as relevant or trusted in relation to the word spore. Probably means many people are now targetting this word specifically. There are probably very few people targetting the word creature specifically.

Bottom line just keep getting links with the word spore in them and you should start appearing in searches for that term.

That is quite likely.

Thanks gazzahk, I can live with "keep working on it" I just wanted to make sure I'm not missing anything really basic.

To rank for "spores" you will need...

* a highly optimized page
* on an established site
* with genuine content
* and overwhelming linkstrength

So very new:

Results for bestsporecreature.com :
Domain Created on:
June 21 2008

Domain age (approximately):
1 Months, 21 days.


Competing for such a big term.., Just have 39 Pages in google, that too pretty low on content..

As per my guess, Your website should be doing well at Yahoo..aint it?

Backlinks are good, https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch;_ylt=AgVBaKEsLwsavE6cYvlDPFbbl8kF?p=http %3A%2F%2Fwww.bestsporecreature.com%2F&bwm=i&bwmo=d&bwmf=s

But, Most of them look sitewides..Quiet a lot of them must be nofollowed..

But the REAL problem is here:

http://www.bestsporecreature.com/
http://www.bestsporecreatures.com/

Both of these are your domains, Both are crawlable and both have same content..

http://copyscape.com/view.php?o=10422&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bestsporecreatures.com%2F&t=1218430517&s=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bestsporecreature.com%2F&w=81&c=

Thats why you are losing ground on Google.. Change this and you will see a rise in SERPS at google..

BTW, why are u using two websites with same content?? But anyways, My advice is: Correct all this duplicate content issues and Then Listen to all of the other Advice that people above have posted, or else it will go in vain..

Regards

lovekills_s: I was looking through the FAQs on this forum just a few hours ago, and saw the duplication issue mentioned. I set up 301 redirects for bestsporecreature, bestsporecreatureS, and www.bestsporecreatureS to all point to www.bestsporecreature, so hopefully the duplication problem will be solved (unless I'm misunderstanding how that works).

Thank you so much for the feedback, this is incredibly educational for me!

Oh, just want to clarify one point - I'm not actually expecting to get good rankings for "spore" with what I have, I'm first and foremost trying to understand why the rankings so far are what they are, since I am new to this. The replies in this thread have helped immensely.

Is the redirect set up just recently? It might take some time for google to recognize it and validate the credit onto the new domain..

But since at present both the pages are available for google, you are bound to see some drops in the coming time till the 301 gets recognized 100%..

Add more content, and then prolly, you can see some improvement in the coming months..and ofcourse links for everything..

Hi sir I really want to know who you are, sorry this post is not related to thread, your analytical skills amazing I always appreciated it, can you send PMs about your self.
You are right get back links related to your website add some valuable content use your targeted keywords in your anchor tag.......