2 clients are going after the same market.

Client one is on an older platform. We do not manage the site. The content is stale.

Client two is on a newer platform. We manage the site. The content is fresh. The site is optimized.

What client has better SEO results for the terms? Client one.

Client one is in the 5 spot and client two is in the 13 spot. On the second page. I usually find that as long as we can get the client on the first page, they are happy.

Now the burning question... why?

Good question. There can be many reasons why but I believe, in this case, the answer is dynamic alt tags. The older site has them. The newer site does not.

In other words, the older site has "$search-term pic of $item-name" and the new site has "$search-term pic."

I'll change the client 2 and see what happens.