Second anchor text on page. Does it count?
-
Back in 2008 there was "proof" that the anchor text of a second link on a page would not be counted for the anchor text.
In the MOZ starter guide it is still advocated: https://moz.com/learn/seo/anchor-textBUT in 2014 it was reported on searchengine land:
http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-one-page-two-links-page-counted-first-link-192718
That the second link might be counted. Direct link to the matt cuts video from 28 may 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AsLWIuNNMU(Even in 2010 there where already some different opinions and work arounds.
https://moz.com/blog/the-first-link-counts-rule-and-the-hash-sign
https://moz.com/ugc/3-ways-to-avoid-the-first-link-counts-rule (2011)Question: did anyone recently test this recently?
The deeper questions are:
1:is the LINK value counted if you have more that one link on a page to another page?
2: is the Anchor text counted if you have more than one anchortext to another page?The most interresting i have is that i have a menu from which i link to my important pages. Does it help to put extra links in the content to specific pages?
-
Hi Stramark,
How did you get on in your testing? Just wondering what the latest on this is for 2015-2016?Thanks.
-
I have done a test of my own.
I used a very important page on my website.
The page has not been changed for more than 2 months.
The page has a link from the main menu with the money keyword "zoekmachine marketing"
I used the blogpart of my website to add 5 extra links like this: https://www.stramark.nl/zoekmachine-marketing/#4-p-zoekmachine-marketingI ran the keyword ranking on the specific anchor text on the 9th of july, and today again.
The result is significantly positive. I will monitor for a few extra days
-
This is also a question of usability / user experience. If your page incorporating in-article anchor links is laid out well and has engaged users clicking those links to explore the different sections of the page, you're likely getting a lower bounce rate and better numbers in-terms of users bouncing back to the search results from your page.
In ATPs case, those links were likely causing navigational confusion and/or potential keyword stuffing flags. Cleaning them up served his site better.
In either case, I don't think it's a simple question of solely how many links count, especially in real world usage. Cheers!
-
Hi Stramark,
This is an interesting debate that I have tried to test myself to some extent and found some mixed results.
A site I took over had category pages linked off the home page in 3 locations, the main nav bar, in the content, and in the footer. The anchor text was different in all 3. I made relatively minor changes but the main one was to make the anchor text the same and remove the footer links. (Basically avoiding any threat of being tagged for spammy links with different keywords)
3 Out of the 8 or so categories saw visible improvements with the removal and standardisation of the anchor text. Very few other changes were made to these pages or the site.
This change leads me to believe that not only can more than 1 link have an impact, but different anchor text on the multiple links also can, multiple links are not simply ignored. However, The big debate i guess is whether that is a good or bad impact, since cleaning them up and removing them helped my pages.
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
-
Backlinks from the Same Domain (But Different Pages)
Wayyy back when (in the days of yore) Mr Cutts spelled out in a video that page rank is distributed equally between the external links on the page. If there are two links on a page, each gets passed 50% of the available page rank etc. (Perhaps an oversimplification but bear with me). As a result of this, the company I worked for at the time (this was the dark ages when sidebar homepage links were in vogue) decreed that we would only ever approach a site about a link for a client once, as additional links had little extra SEO Value. Now you could argue that if there are 5 external links, each acquiring 20% of the power, and your site has 2 of those, you are getting 40% of the power, but lets forget the basic math for a minute. I have scoured the web and Mr Cutts' videos and I cannot find the answer to my question: If my site (Site A) has a backlink from SiteB Page 1, and a backlink from SiteB page 2 - does this count as two separate links in the eyes of Google? If the SAME site links out to my site, linking to different pages in different posts, does this give me more SEO benefit? Thanks for your time!
Link Building | | Turkey0 -
Is it possible to get high page rank without backlinks?
Today while looking for expired domains i found many high pr domains, checked for fake pr found they are valid but there were zero backlinks pointing to them.Is this possible?
Link Building | | IndiaFPS1 -
Should I offer our free eBook on its own page?
I work for an e-commerce website and we have written a super helpful eBook about one of the kinds of products we sell. The original idea was to offer it on the main page that we direct people to when they're shopping for this product, but it occurred to me that it might be better for link building and less cluttered if it has its own page. But we are concerned that link building to a separate page will not help with SEO for the main product page, which was the original goal. What should we do? Pros/cons?
Link Building | | cajohnson0 -
Can I 301 re-direct a page to regain the authority from a penguin penalized page
I built way too many anchor text links to an internal page and was penalized for the associated keyword. However, I do rank on that page for less significant keywords that I didn't build anchor text links for, though not super high. Subsequently, I've found that the sites that rank highly for the keyword that I was looking to rank for are high domain authority with almost no links built to those pages. Can I 301 re-direct that URL to my homepage, where I'm not trying to rank for that term, to make use of that authority of the links I've built to that page and start over on the page that I was hit by penguin on? This appears to make sense to me as my pages that have been hit are specifically for the terms that I have gone overboard on anchor text links. Terms that I haven't built too many anchor text links to still rank on those pages.
Link Building | | dusty79690 -
Homepage Vs. Inner Page Backlink Building?
If I'm trying to rank multiple inner pages, when does strengthening the homepage become more productive than strengthening the inner pages themselves? Is there a strategy to this? For example, maybe you build up a few dozen backlinks to each inner page, and then focus all your efforts on the homepage? Because, from my understanding, strengthening the homepage will go a long way towards helping your inner pages rank. Is that correct?
Link Building | | JABacchetta0 -
If Anchor Text is dead, how do I target certain keywords?
I get it, a truly authoritative source will not be able to control the exact anchor text that others link to it with. Google is trying to deliver the most authoritative source, so non-exact anchor text is more likely a good option for them. This makes total sense and I have been varying the anchor text of my blog posts. But this begs the question: How am I supposed to know I am increasing my rankings for the high volume key words in my industry, and not leaving it up to Google to decide which keywords are most important?
Link Building | | CleanEdisonInc1 -
Joomla's weblink component, do the links count as backlinks?
If your using the default Joomla weblink component do the links you add to others sites count as backlinks to those sites? example: http://www.yakangler.com/helpful-links/26-fishing-blogs-sites
Link Building | | mr_w0 -
Splitting up pages with more then a 100 links
I got a couple of pages with more then a 100 pages / links on them and thus Seomoz gives me warnings for those pages. For some categories i have over a hundred of pages. I listed all these on 1 sitemap (html) because it is a quick overview for visitors which pages there are. Is it smarter to split them up or is that pollution of the Internet (almost identical pages). If i did so i would use rel="canonical" link to the first page (the original) but is it wise?
Link Building | | JarnoNijzing0