Outranked by very bad quality content
Here it goes:
The ecommerce company I work for has a 12-year-old domain with 22K backlinks and a domain rating of 34DP. A few weeks ago, I wrote a guide article about angle grinders. After analyzing our competitors, I made sure our article was more detailed and unique. It includes a clear H1–H5 hierarchy, well-placed keywords, unique images with detailed alt text, informational tables, and titles focused on long-tail keywords.
After publishing the article, we reached the #2 spot on main search terms, outranking many similar articles. However, the strange thing is that the #1 spot is held by a short article from 2021. It has only a single stock image of an angle grinder, no title hierarchy, only single H1 and no informational tables. Their domain rating is 22.
What about backlinks or topical authority?
So far, neither my article nor the #1 competitor’s angle grinder article has any backlinks. Also, this is the only article on both sites that covers angle grinders.
Does anyone have any idea why this might be happening? Our website does not have any technical SEO issues.