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Ranking 2 pages on the same domain in the same SERP
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I thought it was generally said that Google will favour 1 page per domain for a particular SERP, but I have seen examples where that is not the case (i.e. Same domain is ranking 2 different pages on the 1st page of the SERPs...)
Are there any "tricks" to taking up 2 first page SERP positions, or am I mistaken that this doesn't always happen?
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I believe that Google ranks your pages on the basis of what they deserve with minor modifications. All of my sites have double listings where they are strong. Some have triple or quadruple listings where they are outstanding on multiple facets of a topic.
There are no "tricks" to getting these. You need content that answers the query, there can be multiple ways of answering the query, and your content needs to blow the competition out of the water.
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Thanks. So you're saying Google never haves a problem with this other than in more competitive SERPs? I thought Google generally didn't like to rank the same domain for 2 pages...
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It happens a lot. People who make it happen once often make it happen many times.
There are no "tricks". To get two pages listed on the first SERP you must have two pages competing for the same keyword that are strong enough to earn positions in the top ten. Some people can get three pages on the first SERP. It is great to get #1 with multiple listings and push the second place site down to position #3.
One thing that I know is that you often have two pages strong enough but google will filter one of them from the SERPs because they do like to have domain diversity. This usually occurs on highly competitive SERPs. The easiest SERPs to get two pages ranked are long tail SERPs where the competition is thinner.
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