Can you explain why a site with loads of keywork anchor backlinks is ranking well?
-
Hi All,
A couple of years ago my site got punished and i kind of figured out it was due to keyword anchor text backlinks.
I recently was considering getting a new SEO company and found one that promotes another company in my industry. However, when i look at the backlinks, of the website they do SEO for, via open site explorer - I noticed nearly all of the backlinks are keywords.
website in question is http://goo.gl/6nRzLi
And if you see the search results here: http://goo.gl/9bXoxY they are ranking on first page with very big brands - and have done for about a year - but nealy all of their backlinks are the keywords in this search...
I understood this is the kind of thing that killed my website 2 years ago - are these backlinks ok? should i still consider this SEO company to work on my site, i 100% do not want my site to be penalised again so any advice appreciated.
thanks
James
-
I agree with Richard,
A little research shows that this website does not seem to have a whole lot of linking domains/back links. Being that is is such a small website I don't think Google is worried about penalizing them until they get a bit larger. In which case if they continue the same keyword anchor text practices they may run into trouble.
On a good note: Seeing as they do not have a lot of high quality back links you should easily be able to beat this company rankings fairly quickly without having to resort to the over optimized anchor text practices. This should be a fairly quick project depending on your budget and desire to move up fast.That's great news for you !
Remember, sometimes when a website is ranking high for certain keywords, it's not always because the website and seo are done so well. Sometimes it's just they have no competition doing very well at trying to beat them. Which I think may be the case here.
Hope that helps,
Joe
-
There aren't many links showing to the site at all in OSE or Ahrefs. Rarely would a site with so few links receive a penalty. They also have their main keyword in their branded name, which I think can partially shield them since it's part of their brand name.
Remember as well that these tools include only a portion of the links that are out there. Most sites such as social/branded and NAP (name, address, phone#) listings don't show in OSE. These sites tend to have more links that include the brand or url or generic items such as "View Website" that can be balancing out the keyword rich anchor text as well.
-
Thanks for the response Dirk,
Please understand i am not an "SEO" and do not currently employ an SEO, hence i asked the question - i kind of figured it was shady, but just needed some confirmation from SEO experts such as yourself.
Thanks for confirming.
-
I think that the answer that Richard gave you on your first question is also applicable on this one.
Apart from that, you should see SEO as a long term strategy, if your competitor is ranking well with shady techniques, it's may be good on the short term, but he'll loose on the long term. I saw plenty of my competitors take a dive in rankings after the Panda update in May, while quite a number of our sites gained substantial search traffic (+25%)
If you already got punished for over optimised backlinks, I would certainly not take that road again, and be very careful with any SEO company which would propose this strategy.
rgds,
Dirk
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
-
Can you rank without 10 x content
If I create a page about a "Normandy bike tour "and present the same things (pictures, hotels, dates, day by day itinerary, clients reviews, map) as my competitors can I still rank ? Or do I need to add something totally that my competitors don't have on their webpages to rank and compete ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
How can a site rank high without any visible SEO tactics?
Hi SEO specialists, I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but there is something bugging me for awhile now, so I thought let's give it a try. I work for several clients and one of them works in the Psychic business. Since a few months we see that site from Psychicvop.com is taking over all kinds of top rankings in Google. The strange thing is that I can't detect anything that I always learned which is basic material for SEO. There isn't much content and there link profile isn't really spectacular either. Does any of you have an idea what it is about this sites that makes them outrank every other site in the business?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LiveFootballTickets0 -
A single page from site not ranking
Hello, We have a new site launched in March, that is ranking well in search for all of the pages, except one and we don't know why. This page it is optimised exactly the same way like the others, but still doesn't rank in Google. We have verified robots.txt for noffollow, noindex tags, we have verified if it was penalized by Google, but still didn't find nothing. Initially we had another site and was on the topic of this page, but we have redirected it to the new one. In case this old site was anytime in the past penalized by Google, could it be possible that the new page be influenced by this? Also, we have another site that ranks on the first position, that targets the same keywords like the page that does not rank. It was the first site we launched, so it is pretty much old, but we do not have duplicate content on them. Maybe Google doesn't like the fact that both target the same keywords and chooses to display only the old site? Please help us if you have any ideas or have been through such thing. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daniela.pirlogea0 -
Checking Rankings Again & Again Can Drop Rankings
Is it possible that if i check my google rankings again & again it can drop ranking?Like checking where do my keywords rank every hours rank drop the rankings? Because this indirectly affects the CTR. Might be because of it? No one has faced such an weird thing before.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Google Signal for Site Speed: PageSpeed ranking, Time To First Byte, or something else?
We were having an internal discussion regarding what specific signal Google is looking for regarding Site Speed. My understanding was that Google primarily used Time To First Byte (TTFB) as its signal of Site Speed. My colleague argued that this is not part of Google's PageSpeed Insights (https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/) and therefore was unlikely to be the primary signal. Who is right? Is TTFB the primary signal or the score on PageSpeed Insights?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DesignHammer1 -
Making unresponsive site responsive, should I expect any ranking penalties?
Hello, I have a website made with asp.net and ranking quite well for a number of competitive keywords like in google top 10 results for more than a dozen competitive keywords. Recently in order for better user experience, I am having it developed so it is fully responsive for all screen resolutions. Basically all the design element / site text will remain the same including color scheme / layout etc outwardly but internally this will change everything all the css / page html (tables converted to divs) etc. Now my question is: 1. Will this considered by bots a complete site overhaul and ranking will take a hit even if I stay with current platform i.e. asp.net? 2. While making design responsive I can also develop a wordpress theme, which will make it easier to work with the website as the site does not require any programming. So if I also change the platform like from MS IIS/asp to Apache / php how will search engine bots take this? 3. If above in fact will result in ranking drop, how much time will it take for the rankings to get back to normal? Note that I use extensionless urls so the urls will remain the same as well even if we convert from asp to php. Sorry for long details but question is bugging me from weeks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hpk0 -
Site Not Ranking- No Reason Why
I have a client with a HUGE website who should be ranking for it's competitive keywords. No penalties, or bad links. Old domain. Not ranking for anything. Client has a huge AdWords spend and my theory is that it's not ranking organically because of the AdWords spend. I can't think of anything other reason. Anyone? Thanks. The keywords I'm trying to rank this client for aren't even competitive.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 01023450 -
Can your site be penalized for changing the url structure and if so how long till you get back?
I'm doing well on yahoo and bing and the only reason I can think of for why I'm not showing on Google is because I changed the url structure a couple of months ago. I have solid on and off page done for this site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | deciph220