Anchor Text Usage
-
Hi,
What is the best way to use anchor text during link building after recent updates from Google.
I thinking of doing the following:
60% Brand Keyword (my site name)
20% Click here, visit this site etc
20% myurl.com
10% a Mix of both broad & phrase match of my targetted keyword.What do you suggest
Does anyone have a working strategy?
Will be waiting for your replies...
-
Hi Vegitss,
Great topic as I'm actually working on a blog post about this as we speak.
Since Penguin and the over-optimization updates, we've seen an explosion of "click here" and "example.com" links in an effort to "normalize" folks' backlink profiles. The article that David mentioned on Microsite Masters did a lot to propel this myth.
But there's a downside too. Links like "click here" don't communicate much information to Google about context. In fact, the last time Google updated it's SEO Starter Guide, it officially discouraged these types of links:
Avoid:
- writing generic anchor text like "page", "article", or "click here"
- using text that is off-topic or has no relation to the content of the page linked to
- using the page's URL as the anchor text in most cases
- although there are certainly legitimate uses of this, such as promoting or referencing a new website's address
Bill Slawski has written extensively about anchor text and their use in Phrase Based Indexing through Google patent filings. If I may quote one of his summaries:
"Anchor text in links pointing to a page that include the phrase or a related phrase (one that tends to co-occur on pages that rank for that phrase) should be given more weight than anchor text that doesn’t."
Of course, a lot has changed in the past couple of years. Google is undoubtedly much better at using contextual analysis and techniques like co-citation at inferring link context.
So I do my best to avoid generic anchors whenever possible. 4 alternatives to generic anchors that I like to use include:
- Brand/Business Name - I see it's on your list
- There is potential for problems if your brand name is also keyword rich, like "Best Blue Widgets Inc" - This is almost the same as exact match keywords, so it's best to proceed cautiously.
- People's Names - Such as folks who work in your organization. Got this tip from Dan Shure - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Dt_0u98gVE
- Partial Match - The problem with partial match is that folks over-do it.
- Loan
- Payday Loan
- Fast Cash Loan... These are obviously intended for search engines and not for users. A true partial match anchor text puts the user first, like "find consumer friendly loan options here" or "a great borrowing program" are more indicative of what I would prefer.
- Related Text - Again, from Bill Slawski - "(as defined by the phrase-based indexing patents) than generic text, especially if the anchor text gives potential visitors a good idea of what they might find on the other side of a link."
Of course, I could be wrong about all of this. But I think if we look at Google's intent - create content for users and not search engines - adopting this strategy will go much further long term than any short term gains had by trying to "trick" search engines by using "click" here type anchor text.
Just my 2 cents
-
Check out this case study:
It will answer your question and will be better than any opinion you read here.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Menu anchor text and PR / Juice Flow
Hello, I have a top menu coded this way with an (it is automatic with my wordpress template). Can google read pass the juice and read the anchor text with this type of code or no ? <nav id="top-menu-nav"> myanchortext </nav>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Does Disavowing Links Negate Anchor Text, or Just Negates Link Juice
I'm not so sure that disavowing links also discounts the anchor texts from those links. Because nofollow links absolutely still pass anchor text values. And disavowing links is supposed to be akin to nofollowing the links. I wonder because there's a potential client I'm working on an RFP for and they have tons of spammy directory links all using keyword rich anchor texts and they lost 98% of their traffic in Pengiun 1.0 and haven't recovered. I want to know what I'm getting into. And if I just disavow those links, I'm thinking that it won't help the anchor text ratio issues. Can anyone confirm?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MiguelSalcido0 -
Does changing Anchor text of old built links raise a red flag in Google?
I have lot of links (10000+) built against Exact match anchor text so what is solution to that now? Other than disavowing them all, May I change the anchor text of those links (From Exact Match To Brand Name or naked URL)? Does Google have algorithms to detect anchor text changes and if so, do those algorithms detect these sorts of changes and raise a red flag on sites doing it. I respect your opinions but please only comment if you are sure about it because I am already facing a penalty so can't afford to get another.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ishrat-Khan1 -
Is white text on a white background an issue when...?
Hi guys, This question was loosely answered here (http://www.seomoz.org/q/will-google-index-a-site-with-white-text-will-it-give-it-bad-ratings), but I wanted to elaborate on the concern. The issue I have is this, http://www.searchenginexperts.com.au/preview/white-text-white-background-issue Of the four div elements on the page, which; is best practice for SEO? and which of them would not be penalized by google on the grounds of hidden text? The reason I ask is that I have a site that is currently implementing the first div styling, but if you either remove the image OR uncheck the repeat-x (in inspect element) the text is left as white on white. I have added the transparent image on green to prove that having a background colour to back up the tiled image is not always going to work. What can be done in this scenario? Thanks in advance, Dan (From my managers account)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RuchirP0 -
Internal Anchor Text Penalty Clarification
I believe we may be seeing the initial stages of a penalty for over-using internal anchor text on our ecommerce site. Per Rand and other training, we added related product links and popular category links to our product and category pages. At the time, we did not have an html sitemap in the footer. We're a small to medium sized site with 1,700+ products. We have since added an html sitemap of our categories to our footer. Now we have category links in the sitemap and category pages and product pages with targeted anchor text. I'm beginning to see downward movement on some of those targeted categories. If I have an html sitemap in the footer (category index) should I get rid of the popular category links throughout the rest of the site? Also, with more frequency, I'm seeing a "product index" and "category index" in footers. Is this a best practice? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads0 -
Hosting / Redesign & Text Change
In the process of redesigning a clients site. The text and the design need to change to focus the site on conversions more than it is at present. The client is not happy with the current host, they want to change, my feeling is to either change a while before the site redesign is launched or a while after. Anyone got any opinions, experiences to share. Justin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GrouchyKids0 -
Multiple sites linking back with pornographic anchor text
I discovered a while ago that we had quite a number of links pointing back to one of our customer's websites. The anchor text of these links contain porn that is extremely bad. These links are originating from forums that seems to link between themselves and then throw my customers web address in there at the same time. Any thoughts on this? I'm seriously worried that this may negatively affect the site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GeorgeMaven0 -
Multiple anchor text links
Hi. I wanted to ask about having multiple text links to an internal page from the same page. So I have a section title on my home page which will vary with each article. It may say "Healthiest Cat Foods" as the title then offer a snippet and finally offer a "continue reading..." anchor text. The title is a great link to the article while the "continue reading..." is another link to the same article. I like the to keep the title link because it is perfect anchor text. I like to keep the "continue reading..." because it seems helpful for users. I have read that search engines will only count the first link to an article which is fine as I only want the first one to count anyway. What I am wondering is do I lose any page rank because I added the second link? Does that second link hurt me in any way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NikkiGaul0