Should you ever change your anchor text ?
-
Hello
I have a question about anchors. I have done all my own seo over the last 3 years, with tools from various sites. I had an seo audit done about 1 month ago and was told my link profile was very natural.
They had one recommendation. To go back over my link profile and ask some webmasters if they would change the anchor from the name of my site or my url to a more seo friendly phrase. This seemed logical. I never did a lot of anchor text just name or site or url.
Anyway, over last 4 weeks I have messaged several webmasters and asked to have anchor text changed to something along the lines of the keywords Im targeting. Tedious task to go through all the links but I changed several anchors to what was recommended. I was also out link building at same time.
These last links and I got several of them all natural links after 16 hours work days. Are all will seo friendly anchors, because as Ive gotten more experienced my links have gotten more in lines of what is "seo friendly" or at least I hoped.
I asked one webmaster to change my anchor and he warned me I would be slapped with a penguin penalty and wouldn't recommend I do this. I have already done this to several of my links. Then today the new seomoz update came up and I was down on DA and PA by 3-4 points. Do these have anything to do with one another and have I been given bad advice and can I fix it if I have ? Sorry about long post just a little confused. I don't want to step into penalty land and not know I did.
-
Hi Jennifer,
Great question! Thanks for writing in.
Generally, I don't like to ask for any specific anchor text. You can see why in this WhiteBoard Friday I did here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/high-value-tactics-futureproof-link-building-whiteboard-friday
While it's nice to have a mix of SEO friendly, anchor text links, the problem (as Omar pointed out) is that it creates patterns that search engines can easily detect which heightens the risk of an over-optimization penalty or filter.
DA and PA are calculated independent of anchor text, so the drop you saw hopefully had nothing to do with your "link correcting" and was instead likely a natural fluctuation in these metrics.
I wouldn't worry too much about the links you already changed - unless you notice your rankings and traffic drop. If this happens, you may need to go back to those webmasters on your hands and knees and ask them to change it back.
Otherwise, the best strategy you can pursue is to build new links to boost and balance your profile... naturally.
-
You shouldn't have more than 50% of your links anchor text optimized. By and large your top anchor text should be your brand/compnay name, website url, or brand + keyword.
I wouldn't recommend continuing to "over" optimize your anchor text because you do risk getting a penalty with that strategy. If I were you I would use opensiteexplorer and run a link profile of the top ranking sites for your keywords and get a feel for how many anchor text optimized links they have for the targeted keyword and also look at the % of brand/company anchor links vs total links to get an idea of a good mix to help you rank.
Hope this helps!
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
-
I just got hammered by a Google penalty - My guess is it was was keyword stuffing anchor text...help!
Hi, I just woke up to find my website had disappeared from search results in Google relevant to my business keywords. Looking back over the past few weeks I realise I went 'keyword heavy' in a few too many back links. I am careful to avoid websites with a high spam score and have varies anchor text well in the past. However, now the website has 86% less search visibility and I am being penalised for all searches apart from my brand name. I have tried to change as many back links with the keyword in question as I can but some links I can't change. My questions: Will this penalty be for good? What else can I do to rectify the situation?
Link Building | | sebgates0 -
How does a business have a link back where I can't see the anchor text?
So, I'm running competitor websites through Open Site Explorer and following the link from Moz to where their link is coming from. It has the anchor text 'Christmas Gifts'. When I go to that page there is no mention of this anchor text. No mention of that persons website. No display ad's that could be providing that link. How is this link pointing to their page?
Link Building | | Byron_Bay_Gifts0 -
Has anybody ever heard of or used Linkredible?
Link building is the hardest aspect that we, and I'm sure most SEO companies, deal with. I've been looking into a company called Linkredible (https://linkredible.com) that provides link building services that are supposedly pretty "natural." Their explanations and service descriptions all seem to make sense, but I definitely don't want to do anything that could cause link penalties for my clients. Has anybody used this company or any similar services that could give me some input?
Link Building | | garrettkite0 -
I have listed my business in a lot of directories and my authority hasn't changed why??
I have listed my business in a lot of directories recently and my domain authority dropped 1 point...why? second I would like to know what is the most effective way to increase my website domain authority?
Link Building | | VanityCosmetic0 -
What is a healthy ratio of keywords being used as anchor text in external links to our site?
Hi, One keyword is being used as anchor text in way more external links to our site than any others and I'm getting a lot of mixed advice whether or not to do anything about it. The agency we previously used had managed to remove about 1500 links (out of 6000) however our rank for that search term is still very poor. **We have 4500 external links with the anchor text "ABC" and the next highest amount of external link anchor text is the term "XYZ" which has about 400 links. That is over 10 to 1. What is a healthy ratio of anchor text between different search terms to aim for? ** Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Link Building | | Syed_Raza0 -
Anyone know anything about or ever used SubmitEdge?
Hey everyone, just more curious to know if any of you have heard about, know anything about or ever used the link building services from SubmitEdge? I only ask because they pop up everywhere and took a look at their website and it says they do everything under the sun, have PR6, Moz DA 71, Moz Home PA 76. Any feedback is good feedback and thanks in advance for any discussion points! - Patrick
Link Building | | WhiteboardCreations0 -
How do you use anchor text post Penguin?
I have a client with several businesses within the same industry - Each of these businesses have their own websites. So, I have a few questions with this in mnd: **When using anchor text (exact keyword phrases) on his website pages, how many links are safe to use per page? And if I want to interlink between his businesses, is it better to use exact keyword phrases to link or just a straight URL link for those other businesses? **When guest blogging or using an external blog of our creation, is it best to use exact keyword phrases (and how many) or URL links? I want to make sure I am not over linking - help? thanks a lot
Link Building | | BenjaminDonley0 -
I have been under the understanding that it is best to vary your anchor text.
I have been working on a keyword term "boat covers" - however a link from the manufacturer site with the anchor text something like "Company Name Boat Covers" would be just a good or better. Is this correct? Thanks, Brook
Link Building | | tdawson090