Question about Difference in Rankings

[roweash3]

Hello,

Last year I registered eight hotelsin[city].co.uk domains, all with approximately 800-1200 local exacts. I bought and attached the popular WP theme, and added a little bit of content to a two of them.

One of the websites with content attached is now ranked #2 for “hotels in [city]”.
Four without content are ranked at the bottom of the first page, #7-9.
I’ve gained a small amount of AdSence revenue on these five, but no affiliate bookings yet.

My question is regarding the other three domains. One has content (local attractions, local restaurants, etc...), and the other two only have the hotels pulled from the affiliate.

How can two websites, pretty much exactly the same, be ranked so differently? - One #7 - One unranked.

Also, does anyone else have a hotelsin[city].co.uk that’s earning regularly from Late Rooms?

Thanks,
Ash

 

[Jamie101]

More competition in city1 than in city2?

 

[roweash3]

More competition in city1 than in city2?

Thanks for your reply Jamie.

I don't think that's the case, as they all have a similar number of local exacts, and there's not a great difference in population/popularity (that i know of).

Also, that'd be more understandable if city1 was #7 and city2 was #30+, but for city2 to be completely unranked I think it may be something I've done wrong.

 

[Jamie101]

Thanks for your reply Jamie.

I don't think that's the case, as they all have a similar number of local exacts, and there's not a great difference in population/popularity (that i know of).

Also, that'd be more understandable if city1 was #7 and city2 was #30+, but for city2 to be completely unranked I think it may be something I've done wrong.

I see what you mean, it does seem a bit weird. I don't suppose anybody else used to own any of the domains that aren't ranking? Maybe they got a penalty or something.

 

[Systreg]

I’ve gained a small amount of AdSence revenue on these five, but no affiliate bookings yet.

I've said it before, I just don't understand why people put Adsense on aff sites where they are trying to sell any sort of product.

When someone comes to your hotel site, they're looking for info and to possibly book a room but, they may well click an Adsense ad instead, that takes them to a competitors site, where they may book the room, you earn a few pennies for the ad click, they get the commission for the booking when they could have booked it on your site, I would ditch the Adsense as it's potentially costing you sales for the sake of a few small Adsense earnings

 

[Blossom]

Could be LOTS of things at play here. I would guess it's possibly down to links, or more likely you've triggered an instant penalty. If the site ranks for its own URL but nothing else at all, and you've checked properly using a tool that there are no other rankings of any kind, it's almost certainly a penalty.

 

[roweash3]

I see what you mean, it does seem a bit weird. I don't suppose anybody else used to own any of the domains that aren't ranking? Maybe they got a penalty or something.

Thanks. I registered all the domains myself, so I didn't buy them off anyone else. I'm new to domaining so I'm not 100%, but I don't think they've had any previous owners.

I've said it before, I just don't understand why people put Adsense on aff sites where they are trying to sell any sort of product.

When someone comes to your hotel site, they're looking for info and to possibly book a room but, they may well click an Adsense ad instead, that takes them to a competitors site, where they may book the room, you earn a few pennies for the ad click, they get the commission for the booking when they could have booked it on your site, I would ditch the Adsense as it's potentially costing you sales for the sake of a few small Adsense earnings

Thanks Systreg, I never thought about it like that. At the moment, with zero commission, and £50 (over the year) of AdSence clicks, it makes sense for me to leave them on. But I do see your point, and the need to experiment with it. I might take half off / leave half on and see if it has any effect on my commissions.

Could be LOTS of things at play here. I would guess it's possibly down to links, or more likely you've triggered an instant penalty. If the site ranks for its own URL but nothing else at all, and you've checked properly using a tool that there are no other rankings of any kind, it's almost certainly a penalty.

Thanks. I've used a number of tools, some of which give different results to how I am seeing the websites on the first page (could be linked to my browser history?). Can you send me a link to the tool you use?

 

[Systreg]

At the moment, with zero commission, and £50 (over the year) of AdSence clicks, it makes sense for me to leave them on.

Sorry, I would disagree that it makes sense to leave them on Over a year, £50 is nothing really, it's only around 13 pence a day, you could earn more commission than that from just 1 hotel booking, if you didn't have the Adsense there for people to click and take them away from your site.