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.
Should my backlinks point to my home page or to internal article pages?
-
Hi,
I run a fitness blog and I get the majority of my backlinks through guest posts that I write on high quality sites. Sometimes they allow me to put a backlink within the article, and I'll link it to a relevant article of mine. However, in the "author bio" section my backlink anchor text is usually just my brand name. I was wondering if this backlink should point towards my home page or is it more beneficial to point it towards an important article of mine?
Thanks
-
I would view this a a usability matter. Where would someone expect to land after clicking on a link in an author bio? I would likely expect to land on your home page, or a good About me page.
Chances are, if it's a well set up bio section, it will be a nofollow link. So there won't be any benefits other than to the user who clicks on it.
~Caro
-
Jeremy,
The correct answer to your question is that it needs to look natural. I wouldn't necessarily optimize the anchor text and the link so that it's pointing to one particular page or even your home page with certain anchor text.
If it's your author bio, then naturally it should point to your site's home page. An alternative would be to create/write a page specifically for your author bio (where you list your articles that you've written).
-
Hi Jeremy,
There isn't really a "correct" answer to this one.
Links help with your rankings regardless of where they are sent. The fact that these links are coming from high-authority sites is probably the biggest benefit, regardless of anchor text or link pathway.
On the flipside, you probably want to try to create relevancy between the page you are linking from and the page you are linking to. For example, as a fitness expert, if you are providing information on proper stretch technique or diet, then you may want to target pages on your website that feature stretching or diet respectively. Your author bio links might link to an "About" page on your website since people who click on your author bio might be looking to learn more about you (creates UX as well as website traffic since they are finding what they are looking for with 1 click). The Home Page is also an option since it provides greater link juice throughout the site, but your referral traffic drop-off might increase as a result.
As for sites that allow links within the content itself, you can go the Home Page linking route if you want since that helps with general rankings across your site. That being said, Home Pages don't convert people, landing pages do.
My personal opinion is you choose link pages on your site according to keywords you want to rank for and based on their relevancy to your guest post topics. It's better to drive targeted traffic to relevant pages rather than bring general traffic to your home page.
There are a lot of different ways to look at this, but technical SEO is giving way more and more to user experience and relevant link channels, so I would be less worried about pounding your home page with links and more about ensuring your users have a good experience on your site - that's how you get returning traffic and repeat visitors.
Good luck moving forward!
Cheers,
Rob
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
-
Does iframe itself count as a backlink?
Our situation is similar to YouTube. We have an original content on every subpage that is genuinely useful when embedded as a widget on 3r party websites. That is why we offer an embeddable widget that shows slightly simplified version of the content - exactly like a YouTube video embedded on your blog. The embed code is simply an iframe sourcing from our subpage: <iframe src="wikibudgets.org/subpage"></p> </blockquote> <p>1/ Does the iframe itself pass any link value at all to the subpage?</p> <p>2/ If yes, what would be the equivalent of anchor text in iframe?</p> <p>3/ If not, will any link in the subpage pass link value from the 3rd party website to my domain/subpage?</p> <p>4/ If not, will I be punished/rewarded if I ask users to put a visible, unobfuscated link to the subpage below the iframe?</p> <blockquote style="background: #f7f7f7; padding-top: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-left: 2px; padding-bottom: 5px; white-space: nowrap; overflow-y: auto; font-family: monospace;"> <p><iframe src="wikibudgets.org/subpage" /><a href="wikibudgets.org/subpage">rich anchor text</a></p> </blockquote></iframe>
Link Building | Aug 22, 2020, 2:41 AM | wikiBudgets0 -
Rankings Dropped After New Backlinks.
I have a low-traffic website (under 100 unique visitors per day) and I've encountered a strange issue started yesterday morning. I acquired three back-links, one of these back-links is contextual and the other two are site-wide. The site-wide back-links are from PA 40+ blogs. It looks like the back-links are already indexed by Google. Despite these new back-links, my rankings across multiple keywords have dropped several positions. I'm new to SEO, but I would assume new back-links would improve my rankings. None of these back-links are low quality links, they are from real established blogs with high domain and page authority values. Could anyone give me insights into why my rankings may have dropped with new back-links?
Link Building | Aug 15, 2016, 8:49 PM | poke11 -
Backlinks and PDFs
Hi, we are trying to improve on the number of links to our website. A supplier has added a PDF file which is case study to their website. In the PDF it has a link to our website, will this count as a link or not? Thanks
Link Building | Aug 27, 2014, 8:39 AM | danieldunn100 -
Do links to my website improve all pages?
I'm currently building links to my home page (through directories) and blog pages. However, none of these pages are actually targeted pages for main keywords. In SEO, do links to any webpage of a site contribute to the improved rank of other pages?
Link Building | Nov 20, 2013, 10:47 AM | Gavo0 -
Trading Backlinks a good idea?
New to the "backlinking" party. Wondering if its 'good practice' to trade links with other websites within a like-industry. We've been receiving a lot of emails from other websites asking us to trade links. Is this a good link building practice anymore? Thanks!
Link Building | Apr 12, 2013, 10:50 AM | asa-php0 -
How to get BackLinks?
What is the best site to get backlinks ? Not for free, i mean a paid premium services . I think i need backlinks for the authority of my sites. My sites are indexed, but when i search for different keywords on google, i find them on page 5-7 . I need to see them on page 1-2 . But my site's authority is : 1 .
Link Building | Feb 2, 2013, 8:09 PM | vende123450 -
Should I use Article Submitter software?
I've downloaded Article Demon a while ago and have been trying to use it all though it hasn't been as easy to use as I would have liked. I was just wondering what you guys feel about Article Submitting software, if it's useful or if it's a waste of time? Regards
Link Building | Oct 25, 2011, 3:44 AM | HeadStud0 -
Press Release Sites for Backlinks
OK, I read a previous thread about whether people found press release sites useful (specifically I am considering a reputable pay for release service). I understand the knock on press releases in this digital age (namely that no one reads them and arguably never did . . . ), but I was interested in moving the discussion in a different direction . . . Do press releases services really help a sites performance based on increased backlinking? Is there a SEO benefit to PR services? My company is a local print company. I've done quite a bit of research on my local competitors, and specifically for a couple products we would like to dominate. The good news is that it looks like the hurdle would not be terribly high to really take over the web presence with a well planned and executed website/SEO campaign. My inclination is that for a relatively small company like mine (dealing with relatively small competitors) it WOULD benefit me to pay for the sheer number of backlinks a PR program would generate. The monthly cost is frankly about the same as the cost of this site, which OF COURSE I get value from (hey moderator, how about a couple extra MOZ points for that one!) Specifically, I am looking at this for myself, but feel free to expand the question to the broader topic.
Link Building | Jun 30, 2011, 3:08 AM | damon12121