Does a landing page rank for the whole site's content?

[dominique7]

As far as I understood it...

When Google is to rank a page on a website, it considers the content on this specific page (and backlinks and so on...) and counts the keywords.

So, page X would rank for Xs keywords while page Y for Ys, while the landing page would rank for the landing page's keywords.

OR...?
When I look into webmaster tools, the main keywords for my whole site seem to be those from some sub-page with lots of content, while the landing page's keywords occur to be less important.

So: Does Google look at all the content of a site to find the keywords for the landing page?

I'd be really glad if someone could confirm this!
I'd have to review my SEO then...

Cheers,
Dominique

[InsightsDigital]

As far as I know of - your home page must have the highest PageRank and then subsequent sub pages are scored lower and not higher than your main page.

[dominique7]

As far as I know of - your home page must have the highest PageRank and then subsequent sub pages are scored lower and not higher than your main page.

They have the same pagerank. I didn't think of that.
So, pagerank is a factor for this?

And if pagerank is the same and the landing page has much less content than that subpage (which is maybe additionally keyword rich), then Google might get the main keywords to rank the landing page from that subpage?

Seems so in my case, still I wonder...

Cheers,
Dominique

[ayoungpretender]

I am a little confsed here. Aren't the landing pages all the pages on your site where traffic is sent? What is the difference between landing pages and your subpages?

[dominique7]

I am a little confsed here. Aren't the landing pages all the pages on your site where traffic is sent? What is the difference between landing pages and your subpages?

Yes, you're right.
I meant my index.html where you land when you just type the domain name. I should have said: "homepage" - sorry for the confusion!

Let me put my question in the correct terms now:
I wonder about the homepage, which will often be the page which ranks best for your most important keywords.
1) Ist content from the subpages also relevant for the keywords that a homepage will rank for in Google?
2) Is it even possible that a subpage's content (keywords) will overweight the homepage's title and keywords, so Google rates the subpage's keywords higher (eg. if there's more text on the subpage).

Cheers,
Dominique

[mystryworld]

They have the same pagerank. I didn't think of that.
So, pagerank is a factor for this?

And if pagerank is the same and the landing page has much less content than that subpage (which is maybe additionally keyword rich), then Google might get the main keywords to rank the landing page from that subpage?

Seems so in my case, still I wonder...

Cheers,
Dominique

Yes, I also want to know that does page rank play any important role here?

[jay 11]

Yes, I also want to know that does page rank play any important role here?

No.. Google Toolbar Page Rank has no effect on how well your site ranks in the search engine Result Pages. Instead, the quality of content and relevancy to the search keywords will determine how each pages ranks in the SERPs. On-site optimization doesn't hurt either. :)

But to answer the OP's question... yes a homepage will rank for keywords found throughout the site. However, a specific file page (or sub-domain) from your site might rank *better for certain keywords because that particular page is more relevant to those keywords.

For example, if you have a website selling baseball accessories, your homepage might return for queries on "baseball bats," and "baseball gloves" but that homepage result will probably be on page 42 of the search engine result pages. On the other hand, a specific file page dedicated to selling "baseball bats," will rank on page 2 or 3 of the SERPs because that page has more content and is more relevant to the search query.

[dominique7]

thank you jay for your answer.
I understood it and and your example makes sense to me.

But isnt' it a bit strange that my homepage isn't ranking well for it's main keywords, even with them on the title?
And under Google Webmaster tools you find as most relevant keywords a few (the first three or so) which are only used on a content rich page.
To me it looks like a penalty if Google doesn't rank my homepage well for its own keywords because another page has more content with different keywords?

Cheers,
Dominique

[canadafred]

hey dominique7

Your landing page is the most important page of your website. It introduces your keyphrase targets. Sub-pages both support your keyphrase targets and introdiuce secondary keyphrases and ultimately net in all the auxiliary keyphrases.

Secoindaries include synonymous keywords/phrases, abbreviations, acronyms, pluralized words, altered prefixes/suffixes, antonyms, morphologies, lexicons etc. (note: always remember that the search engine utilizes artificial intelligence and knows what is important and unique to a webmaster according to his use of words in the content, coding practices and employment of the optimizable web site components).

Auxiliary keyphrases, well, they are difficult to predict really. Those are the keyphrase searches that humans use and easily find your site ranked highly, because somehow as a result of your uniquely important web pages, they have (usually) easily discovered your webpages.

[dominique7]

Hi Canadafred,

I think I'm slowly understanding it better. I thought that every page was only ranked for its own content. But finally it makes more sense the way you describe it.

Thanks a lot for your hints. I'll try to internalize and implement them!

Cheers,
Dominique