Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Remove links or change anchor text?
-
I am currently in the process of cleaning up the link profile for a website that has been hit by Penguin thanks to loads of links from free directories with exact match keyword anchor texts (about 200 root domains from total of 300 root domains).
I was wondering whether it's best to remove these un-natrual keyword anchor text links altogether, or change the anchor texts to brand (domain name, domainname.com, www.domainname.com, http://www.domainname.com)?
I am currently trying to remove these links but was thinking it would be quicker to get to a healthier link profile (in terms of brand/commercial anchor text split) by altering the anchor texts and not removing them. Some of these directories are the worst of the worst on the other hand.
Also note that I'm only really getting about a 30% response rate from the owners of these directories.
Any thoughts?
Many thanks in advance.
-
Both of these comments are on target, that said, I would remove any links you can.... within reason. And, I am generally a big fan of updating content. Regardless of the successes of the page. I think fresh is good, it keeps people coming back......... cheers!
-
you're lucky that is a manageable number. i would remove all crap directory links since you are saying they are the worst of the worst it can only hurt you.
-
I've recently undertaken the same task and I decided to make a decision based on the quality of the directory. If you currently have a low amount of back links with your brand/domain in them then changing the anchor text on some of the links will definitely help you build a more natural and strongly branded profile.
Install a page rank toolbar if you don't have one already and check the PR on the home page of each directory. If it comes up as 0 then rather just remove the link (if possible) as it's either a low quality directory to begin with or it's been totally devalued by Google.
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
-
Sitemap.xml change to anchor links (converter)
Hi all, I would like import the sitemap.xml to an anchorlinks list. List with links navigatetion html ^^. Is there a posibility to use a tool or in excel? Because I will use 5000 products and 1000 brands.
Link Building | | Dreamgame20160 -
What is the difference between anchor text and external links?
I understand you 'Pro's' may fins this a silly question. But I'm a visual learner and I can't seem to grasp this. I've read the pages MOZ has provided on anchor text and external links and my question is, how are they different? And which one is more important to seo? Can someone who has a great ability to simplify things, please help me understand this. They seem very similar to me but, I know there has to be more to it. External links: External Links are hyperlinks that point at (target) any domain other than the domain the link exists on (source) **Anchor Text: **Anchor text is the visible characters and words that hyperlinks display when linking to another document or location on the web. Thanks is advance, Lauren.
Link Building | | MissThumann0 -
Tooltip text
Will adding tooltip text to al my links improve my rankings? I read some article, but it's a hell of a job to add tooltip text to al my links. i was wondering if it's worth the time: A tooltip text appears if the mouse hovers over the image or a link and is provided by using the TITLE attribute. A description of the image or the link then appears in the tooltip in a small yellow box (Internet Explorer). The TITLE text (tooltip text) gives a short description of a link or image. The difference between an ALT text and the TITLE text is that the ALT text is a short description that replaces the image if the image does not load. The number of links (internal and external) and images must be equal to the number of tooltips for every page. The number of TITLE text can be higher because ALT text can also be used for other HTML elements. Add Title texts to links or images for those which do not have them yet. Thanks!
Link Building | | Happy-SEO3 -
Asking a site to remove a "nofollow" on a link to our client
Hello, We created a good infographic for a client of ours and a large tech site (DA 86) picked up and ran a story on it. We didn't contact this company asking them to feature it, they have just picked it up through other shares around the Web. I understand that, at the end of the day, it's their prerogative whether to "nofollow" their links or not, but surely they should be giving our client some credit as they have clearly deemed the graphic newsworthy and felt that it would appeal to their readership. I've emailed said tech site, but to no avail. Does anyone have any advice on this? Or is it just a case of they can do what the heck they want? I know that our client will still benefit from the additional referral traffic, but a follow link would have been nicer! Cheers, Lewis
Link Building | | PeaSoupDigital1 -
Do footer links pass less link juice?
One of my best inbound links for PA and DA happens to be a footer link, curious if it's less valuable or has any value at all.
Link Building | | Theskimonster0 -
Changing links
Hi guys i wanted you views on changing the anchor text of links. I have quality links coming in but with year terms such as 2012 in there, if i want to change them all to 2013 for example would it be badly seen by Google? I cant say i feel comfortable about doing it but they are my links and are related to our products. Any advice much appreciated.
Link Building | | pauledwards0 -
Do links within imbeddable widgets carry link juice?
I'm dipping my toes into infographic design. On of my desired outcomes is to gain links by having other sites embed my graphic. I'm considering using Tableau's interactive data visualization software to do so; thus creating a widget, embedding it on my blog, and including the embed code for others to post. Is it possible to include a juice passing link in such an infographic? I know its possible to include links inside the tableau graphic but not sure if they have straight SEO value. If these links are not juice passing would it be better to go with a simple image link that passes value?
Link Building | | JesseCWalker1 -
Does linking to a subdomain give link juice to the main domain?
I have a few domains that I'm going to use for link building, will the link juice from the sub domains transfer to the main domain?
Link Building | | Vsky0