Exact match anchor text is negative signal?
-
Hi all,
I am wondering if the exact match anchor text is 100% negative signal after the penguin. I mean even from relevant sites and natural use.
During the last 2 weeks I see negative SERP changes and I start to think that it is because exact match keyword anchor text is used. I also use some other anchor texts along with it all the time.. but now I think of using 100% exact match anchor free links.
Does anybody have similar observations?
Thank you in advance.
-
It's a balancing act. Google is looking for natural links, not paid or self directed. So percentages are good but you should also randamize your anchor text. If you develop a pattern, eventually the algo can determine that it is un natural. I would identify your most important keywords, maybe 5 and then mix in your brand name and the standard Click Here. Rotate them in a random way and you should be ok. Note your Brand should be the anchor text most often used. I hope this helps and good luck.
-
It depends how many exact match achors you have out there, from what sites and how relevent it is to your domain/title and content.
If your site is joeblow.com and it's content is about horse racing but you have 100 achors for "best horse racing tips" becuause that's what you want to rank for it is indicitive to google those links may not be natural and if deemed so you may lose some of the ranking juice from those links.
Devaluation of links has been a huge going on lately in the google backyard. Especially since Mr penguin migrated from the icy slopes.
-
Good point Russ, I guess the days of being able to analyze your links from a purely % point of view are numbered, if not, over.
-
I concur mostly with what Greg said, but I must add that it is no longer simply about %. Keeping a safe anchor text threshold has been a staple of quality SEO firms for the last 5 years. Instead, what is more likely going on, is that particular links get flagged based on some metric which, in turn, triggers some sort of deeper review (perhaps getting lumped into the next Penguin analysis).
Thus, it is not solely in your best interest to maintain a safe percentage, it is even more important to ensure that none of the links you acquire or have acquired in the past might be one of those triggers. This means avoiding any known networks, only doing in-content links, etc.
-
Hi Vasil,
I don't think having exact match anchor text is a negative signal in itself, as there are some sites and brands built on the back of an exact match domain name. It's more about the %'s involved, if you've focused on exact match anchor text too much over more branded terms, and more natural looking anchor text (eg. www.brandname.com, brandname.com, click here, brand name product, product name, etc.) then you may have suffered with the latest updates.
Here's some links for SEOMoz blog posts that might be of interest to you on this topic;
May 2nd, 2012 - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/penguins-pandas-and-panic-at-the-zoo
Jan 5th, 2012 - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/all-about-anchor-text-whiteboard-friday
Sep 8th, 2011 - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beyond-exact-match-anchor-text-to-next-generation-link-signals-whiteboard-fridayHope that helps.
Greg
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 posting on blogs with anchored backlinks do you any good?
My current strategy: I am ranking for keyword and site: Immigration Consultant I access the Fresh Web Explorer and search my keyword, then find the blogposts with High Authority where I can post using HTML and include my link in my signature, or sometimes the post has a link associated with the username. Now my question is this, does this count? will google even crawl the comments? can I aid the crawling process somehow? Any advice on creating relavent back-links is much appreciated. Thank you
Link Building | | thealika
Nikita0 -
Should I request backlinks to use anchor text that is page specific?
I work for a community college, with fairly high seo for the college in general. We have no budget for advertising specific programs, so we are trying to optimize individual pages on the website, e.g., physical therapy assistant, welding, etc. Does it make a difference if other websites use our main url, college name, or the college name plus specific program as the anchor text? Also, I'm seeing some posts here recommending to avoid lots of directory listings. I assume that doesn't apply to industry specific directories, like nursing school directories, right? I'm still a very new newbie and appreciate your advice.
Link Building | | LAJN0 -
Exact Domain Match URL
Hello I have a few competitors ranking VERY well for exact keyword match URL. They have a single hosted page, when a customer clicks to buy inventory ir re-directs to there main url. Will google eventually catch on to this? Excellent position, very little backlink/seo work. Is this something that I should also look into for my own site? Thank you!
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Multiple KW's , on-page and anchor text
Hello, For each page on my site, I've targeted one primary keyword and three to four secondary keywords. All of the keywords variants are tightly themed. With some on-page, I've ranked page two or three for all of the keywords and many are starting to convert based on Analytics data. Each page scores an "A" using the SEOmoz KW targeting tool for the "primary keyword only". For secondary keywords, I've only included words but not the complete keyword. For example, if the primary keyword is "blue green widgets" and the secondary keyword is "get blue green widgets", I've included the word "get" throughout the copy to target the secondary keyword. My questions are... Should I include each secondary keyword once in the copy and not just the word "get" for example? Just wondering if there is a better approach to target all of the keywords via on-page. When getting links to each page, how would you vary the anchor text to target all of the keywords, primary and secondary? Thanks!
Link Building | | ShaneO0 -
Anchor text... How hard should one try?
I'm looking at a lot of competitor's sites, and they only seem to have gone after root domain anchor text in their link-building campaigns. Since I am just launching and am essentially a one-man band (with some hired help), is it worth my while to attempt to optimize individual keywords or pages at this point, or should I just do as they have done, and try to get domain-name links wherever I can? For that matter, should I spend more time going for the low-hanging fruit of followed blog comments, forum posts etc, or emailing influencers to try and get editorial links? Sorry if that last one is a bit broad, and thanks very much in advance for any and all help.
Link Building | | ZakGottlieb710 -
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 -
Does the url text count as anchor text in google's algo?
I always try to strive for getting good anchortext in links that people link to my sites with, but sometimes they are not very web savvy, or just plain not willing to format the link the way i want it and we end up with links that use the URL as the anchortext. My question is, if i format a url such that it has keywords in it, and when someone makes a link like this: http://www.storwell.com/self-storage-toronto-bursary-application-form.php does google consider the words: storwell, self, storage, toronto, bursary, application & form as the anchor text?
Link Building | | adriandg0 -
Building Links to Exact Match Domains
What are the pros and cons having exact match domain and how can you create a brand name and build backlinks? Say we have a domain personalizedbirthdaygifts.com We are quite stuck with what anchor text we need to use and how do we vary it? I've heard that we have to stay away from using commercial keywords as anchor text heavily. We have to also use our brand name. And here we get stuck as we don't have a brand name. In this case Our brand name should be personalized birthday gifts but this is also commercial keyword. I have seen before similar websites droped from ranking because they have commercial keywords in their domain and most of their backlink anchor texts are commercial. If I had a website called twentyfive.com selling birthday gifts it would be a lot easier. But when you have a website personalizedbirthdaygifts.com and trying to rank for personalized birthday gifts and birthday gifts it's tough. OR isn't it? I hope I explained it well and didn't confuse anybody... Thanks
Link Building | | Jvalops0