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.
Changing backlinks anchor text
-
Hi,
I've read a few blog post here that suggests the strength of building links using your brand as an anchor text. This supposedly gives the site authority. Currently a chunck of the back links to my homepage are on generic terms i'm trying to rank for which doesn't seem to be working very well. I was thinking of contacting the various webmasters to change the anchor text to that of the site brand name but wondering if this will signal a manipulation of links to the search engines and potentially could be flagged as paid links?
Has anybody done this before and what is the danger of doing this?
Thanks
Duke
-
Thanks for the info. Much appreciated guys.
Duke
-
What's your percentage of exact match links in your overall link landscape? Is it over 20% (I would assume lower, but this is the number I've been hearing)? If so, you are probably over-optimized for your phrase. The best action would be to change the links to either your brand, or more preferably, to a similar phrase.
However, if you have less than 10% exact matching links, I wouldn't change those at all. Exact match is still beneficial for ranking (but I doubt it will be forever), and you would actually have some room to grow with them.
With that in mind, remember to:
- Not focus on just one keyword at a time. Gaining 50 Exact links in a row makes it obvious they aren't natural
- Use variations of your keyword, as well as exact.
- If it's your homepage, get a bunch of Brand links.
- Keep a couple poorly optimized links in there (unless they are from high quality sites!)
-
Hi Duke
Thanks for the further info.
As the objective is to not rank better for brand terms, so rather it is to rank better for Non-brand terms, then it doesn't make any sense to focus inbound links on brand terms within the anchor text. That can be counter-productive towards those important Non-brand terms.
Brand is one of many factors when it comes to Search, which you seem to know already. The more brand mentions and links on brand terms, the more authority that brand acquires, in theory.
However that doesn't necessarily benefit Non-brand search.
So all-in-all, my advice is to focus link efforts on a natural blend of Brand and Non-brand links, catering for both is important. Don't worry too much about changing existing branded links to non-brand, instead, focus on both types of links and anchor text moving forwards.
With best regards
Simon
-
Hi Simon,
Many thanks for your answer. The objective is not actually to rank better for the brand term. I thinking along the lines of the link profile and how many of the achor text used are the brand compared to generic terms that we are trying to rank for. Apparently, there is the move towards rewarding inbound links on brand terms than generic term so the advise to webmasters is to build more links on their brand terms.
Hope this clears my question up.
Best regards
Duke
-
Hi there
Changing the anchor text of inbound links that's already optimized for your non-brand target keywords will risk in reducing your rankings for those keywords; obviously depends on factors such as the quality of those inbound links, competition...
If you are already ranking top for your brand, then this doesn't seem like a worthwhile exercise to do, unless Brand is everything to your business. If your brand is not ranking well, then by all means go for it for some existing inbound links.
If you can identify any inbound links on anchor text such as 'click here' or 'visit the website' then by all means try to get that anchor text changed, if the link is worth it.
In most cases, I'd suggest focusing on acquiring new relevant medium & high quality inbound links (natural links that is, not paid) with a variety of relevant anchor text, including both brand and non-brand. This would be time better spent compared to changing existing links that may not help to achieve your goals; increasing the number of relevant visitors to your site.
Hope that helps,
Regards
Simon
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
-
Nofollow backlinks - are they worth it?
As we all attempt to get backlinks for the sites we manage, I have to wonder if it's worth it at all to get a nofollow backlink. Does Google give and positive credit for a link to a site if it is a nofollow link? Obviously, the follow links are worth pursuing. I'm just trying to gain some perspective. Thanks, Wick
Link Building | | wcksmith10 -
Backlinks from newpapers that requires subscription
Don't know if this has been answered in another post, but what happens to backlinks that requires users to subscribe and/or pay to view the content with the backlink on it?
Link Building | | helgeolaussen
Some newspaper sites has subscription requirement to view certain content.
Does the backlink drop in value? Or is there any negative effect from this?0 -
Backlinks through dofollow commenting
I'm interested in building backlinks to my photography business site by leaving good, engaging comments on other photographers' DoFollow blogs. Is this a good idea? Is it worth the effort? Through a little research, I've managed to locate more than 40 dofollow photographer blogs that have a domain authority of 35+. The idea is to take an hour or so a week to leave 10-20 comments on their blog posts. Would you consider this a good strategy? I rank on the first and second page of most of my keywords that I'm working on, but I want to rank 1st or 2nd on them. I used the keyword finder tool on google adwords to find the keywords that are the most searched for in my area. Surprisingly the competition is not large, so I'm fairly comfident I can get there. I've already optimized my site substantially and I'm looking into link building. Thoughts?
Link Building | | studio35design0 -
Do backlinks which contain parameters pass value
For some of our partners, we use our own tracking string in the url i.e. www.mysite.com/landingpage.html?partner=123456 . This has caused backlinks to be created to our site containing the partner string. I was wondering if these links would pass value to www.mysite.com/landingpage.html and the tracking parameters would be ignored or would Google treat www.mysite.com/landingpage.html?partner=123456 as its own page. If it did treat it as a seperate page, could you reclaim some of it using the canoncial tag?
Link Building | | L_F0 -
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 | | vende123450 -
Does the complete url count as backlink?
Hi there, does the http://mysite.com count as a backlink if posted on a site? I post a press releae and the site only allows me to put urls like this. they get something or must be in anchor the url? Thanks
Link Building | | nyanainc0 -
Frustrated with spammy backlinks from competitors
I've only been doing SEO for my company for the last month and I've made some headway but what is really frustrating me right now is a couple of competitors that have OBVIOUS spammy links ranking in the number 1,2,3 stops all over the board for the keywords i'm going for. One competitor in particular has anchor text links EVERYWHERE that make absolutely no sense...junk like... "I have never been more saddened by anything in my life than when my grandfather got cancer. I told my uncle he needed to buy some auto insurance. I really like pork." I mean, these links are the pages with the most page authority and page rank out of all of the ones they have...and I'd venture to say that almost all of their backlinks are like this...well, half of them are just random links with good anchor text on the sidebar of a bazillion spam websites (diapers, toys, fake blogs, etc.)...while i have about 3k links and most of my top competitors have about 5k links...these guys have over 33k. Worse yet, when I look at something like Alexa rank, they have pretty high overall traffic rank but it shows traffic rank in MX (mexico) instead of the US...these guys only sell in the US! I mean, they're black hat if I've ever seen such a thing and they rank superbly on all keywords. What can I do to compete with this junk?
Link Building | | jgower0 -
Paul and Angela Style Backlinks
Do Forum Profile Links provided by Paul and Angela hold any SEO merit ? Will it help in improving SER?
Link Building | | krishrun0