Changing your Anchor Text in 2014
-
Hello I have a series of question,
There was a directory listing we submitted to and got approved. However we got 6 Links total with the same Anchor Text 3 from www and 3 from non www, which is also the Title of our Brand Name. However this is causing an unnatural link.
1. Does Changing the Anchor Text Bad? Does Google have a new way of detecting anchor text changes.
2. Can I change the Title/Anchor to something more generic, so that the anchor text profile is more natural.
3. Since this is a Directory is http://obln.org/ - Does anybody know being on this directory bad?
Or should I just remove this links altogether or Disavow 5 Links and just keep one, because they have a PR5 and has trust flow, losing all the links may not be good as well for ranking.Thanks For your Insight.
-
Hi there,
I'll go through the questions one by one:
1. Does Changing the Anchor Text Bad? Does Google have a new way of detecting anchor text changes.
Google will note the changed anchor text when it re-indexes the pages the links sit on. There is no hard evidence that this is viewed as "good" or "bad", although if the links are otherwise "bad" (from spammy sources), changing the anchor text won't help - the link would be better off being removed. However, if the link is neutral or good, there is no evidence that changing the anchor text will hurt you.
2. Can I change the Title/Anchor to something more generic, so that the anchor text profile is more natural.
Definitely - if you are going to change the anchor, it is best to change it to something related to your brand, e.g. the name of the company or URL of the website.
**3. Since this is a Directory is http://obln.org/ - Does anybody know being on this directory bad? **
Free web directories are not advisable places to build links, so despite this conversation about anchor text, I would remove the link in this case. Yes, they have a PR of 5, but it is the best rule for modern SEO to not use free directories as link building tools because they have been abused so badly for spam in the past.
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
-
What changes to subdomains - geo targeting - redirects - to boost our global ranking?
Hi, This is a complex question and I will really appreciate your help as this decision is essential to our business! We are taking a decision about what to do with our website in the terms of redirecting visitors based on their location. At the moment we have the following structure of the website: .com version practically only hosts our blog. The US traffic get presented with .com/us version automatically and the rest of the world gets presented with .com/uk. We are thinking to make .com version global (so no more .com/uk for all countries) in order to improve our ranking globally. At the moment we have good ranks in the UK, but not in the US and other countries. Our company is a global company now and we would like to get more exposure in other countries. We are also thinking to allow the option of geo redirects possible via a small pop-up window - visitors will be able to select their preferred country so next time they will be presented with their default option. To make it short: we would like to boost our domain without dropping ranks in the UK which we are now achieving through .com/uk version. Any ideas, recommendations or experience, I will appreciate! Thanks! Kat
Technical SEO | | Katarina-Borovska0 -
SERP result (URL) doesn't change after a 301
A couple of months ago there was a result in Google for our branded search term which wasn't the 'official' URL, actually the result shown in the SERP was www.mycompany-ip.nl. We've applied a 301 redirect of this URL to the 'official' URL which is a subdomain: department.mycompany.nl. From Google the redirect is obviously working, but up until now, I don't see Google replacing the incorrect URL by the correct URL. I am wondering what to do to make the result correct. André
Technical SEO | | ConclusionDigital0 -
We just can't figure out the right anchor text to use
We have been trying everything we can with anchor text. We have read here that we should try naturalistic language. Our competitors who are above us in Google search results don't do any of this. They only use their names or a single term like "austin web design". Is what we are doing hurting our listings? We don't have any black hat links. Here's what we are doing now. We are going crazy trying to figure this out. We are afraid to do anything in fear it will damage our position. Bob | pallasart web design | 31 | 1,730 |
Technical SEO | | pallasart
| website by pallasart a texas web design company in austin | 15 | 1,526 |
| website by the austin design company pallasart | 14 | 1,525 |
| created by pallasart a web design company in austin texas | 13 | 1,528 |
| created by an austin web design company pallasart | 12 | 1,499 |
| website by pallasart web design an austin web design company | 12 | 1,389 |
| website by pallasart an austin web design company | 11 | 1,463 |
| pallasart austin web design | 9 | 2,717 |
| website created by pallasart a web design company in austin texas | 9 | 1,369 |
| website by pallasart | 8 | 910 |
| austin web design | 5 | 63 |
| pallasart website design austin |0 -
Domain prefix changed, will this impact SEO?
Our web development team have changed our domain prefix from www to non www due to a server change. Our SSL certificate would not be recognised under www and would produce a substantial error message when visiting the secure parts of our website. To prevent issues with old links they have added a permanent 301 redirect from www. to non www. urls until our sitemap catches up. Would this impact our SEO efforts or would it have no impact as a redirect has been placed? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Jseddon920 -
Google Places Page Changes
We had a client(dentist) hire another marketing firm(without our knowledge) and due to some Google page changes they made, their website lost a #1 ranking, was disassociated with the places page and was placed at result #10 below all the local results. We quickly made some changes and were able to bring them up to #2 within a few days and restore their Google page after about a week, but the tracking/forwarding phone number the marketing company was using shows up on the page despite attempts to contact Google through updating the business in places management as well as submit the phone number as incorrect while providing the correct phone number. And because the client fired that marketing company, the phone number will no longer be active in a few days. Of course this is very important for a dental office. Has anyone else had problems with the speed and updating Google Places/Plus pages for businesses? What's the most efficient way to make changes like this?
Technical SEO | | tvinson0 -
What is the verdict on using negative text indent on a slider
Hi, I am trying to work out the best way of developing a slider on a page which may include text that I'd like indexed by search engines. One method I've read about is to use negative text indent, but people seem undecided on whether this is a good / bad / fine technique with regards to SEO. I'd be interested in hearing the communities views and experience on this. Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | JagexSEO0 -
Frequent server changes
Hey guys. I have a server related question. One of our websites is hosted with a nasty slow company, and we want to make a change. The problem we have is that the site is 6 months old so it started on one server, the client then moved it to this slow host about 2 months ago, we now want to move it again. Will this negatively affect search engine rankings? As ever, thanks in advance 🙂
Technical SEO | | Nextman0 -
If two links from one page link to another, how can I get the second link's anchor text to count?
I am working on an e-commerce site and on the category pages each of the product listings link to the product page twice. The first is an image link and then the second is the product name. I want to get the anchor text of the second link to count. If I no-follow the image link will that help at all? If not is there a way to do this?
Technical SEO | | JordanJudson0