Varying Internal Link Anchor Text with Each New Page Load
-
I'm asking for people's opinions on varying internal anchor text. Before you jump in and say, "Oh yes, varying your anchor text is always a good idea", let me explain.
I'm not talking about varying anchor text on different links scattered throughout a site. We all know that is a wise thing to do for a variety of reasons that have been covered in many places. What I'm talking about is including semi-useful links below the fold and then varying the anchor text with each page load. Each time Googlebot crawls a page, it sees different anchor text for each link. That way, Googlebot is seeing, for example, 'san diego bars', 'taverns in san diego', 'san diego clubs', and 'pubs in san diego' all pointing to a San Diego bar/tavern/club/pub page.
I'm wondering if there is value in this approach. Will it help a site rank well for multiple search queries? Could it potentially be better than static anchor text as it may help Google better understand the targeted page? Is it a good way to protect a large site with a huge number of internal links from Penguin?
To summarize, we're talking about the impact of varying the anchor text on a single page with each page load as opposed to varying the anchor text on different pages.
Thoughts?
-
Thanks for everyone's input!
Without pointing any fingers, let's just say this is happening in the wild right now. It came as a bit of a surprise to me as I wouldn't expect Google to be fooled into ranking a site better for multiple keywords based on dynamic internal anchor text. To be clear, I have no evidence this technique is helping or that the motivation is to game Google for better rankings, but I haven't come up with any other reason.
If it is working, I must admit, it's pretty clever...
-
I would say test it out and see what happens. I would love to know the result. ( youmoz post perhaps ? )
what I assume would happen :
The new link only counts when G-bot crawls the page ( and obviously not on each page load ), and each time Gbot crawls the page it will see that an old link is dropped and a new one is added. So what ever value you gain from the new link , you will lose from the old one which is no longer there. So I really don't see the value to be had from an SEO point of view . But repeat visitors to you page may click through to those pages. ( Again testing it will give you solid proof )
-
What comes to me is this: I don't think you'll get the value out of links with dynamic anchor text that you would get with anchor text that is static. A page's overall value and the value it passes on to other page via links is iterative--it's not assigned after just a single pass of the bot. The dynamism would devalue the links, if not render them worthless all together.
And even if you had one thousand variations of anchor texts for each link and they did pass some sort of value, what do you think that footprint would look like after a year or two of google crawls? Upon a manual review, someone there would say, "Huh, look at this, their links change all the time and each one is focused around a specific money term--I think it's obvious that they're trying to manipulate their rankings. Smack--here's a penalty for you."
-
Oh yes, varying your...oh wait sorry you didn't want that haha.
Erm this is an interesting idea - on first read my first thought was you're trying to game the system and that's never a good idea.
Then I thought a little more and I suppose it is very similar to dynamic content such as offers on your linking page, although it always points at one location.
I suppose it is only similar to changing your anchor text manually to see what works best, but I think that such frequent changes could end up getting noticed - a link anchor changing every time Google visits - surely Google is clever enough to notice this pattern and doesn't it smack of over-optimisation?
I bet others have already tried this - have you done any digging to see if you can find out what the impact was?
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
-
Should I apply Canonical Links from my Landing Pages to Core Website Pages?
I am working on an SEO project for the website: https://wave.com.au/ There are some core website pages, which we want to target for organic traffic, like this one: https://wave.com.au/doctors/medical-specialties/anaesthetist-jobs/ Then we have basically have another version that is set up as a landing page and used for CPC campaigns. https://wave.com.au/anaesthetists/ Essentially, my question is should I apply canonical links from the landing page versions to the core website pages (especially if I know they are only utilising them for CPC campaigns) so as to push link equity/juice across? Here is the GA data from January 1 - April 30, 2019 (Behavior > Site Content > All Pages😞
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wavelength_International0 -
How to stop internal Dynamically created links that generate 404s
Hi I have question weather to block in Robots.txt or through No followed tags. Links that are part of a Dynamic Tab control that generates the tabs based on CMS content. These are internal links on the page which show content within a tab control. Would it stop these errors appearing in the Google report if we added a rel="nofollow" tag to the <a>tag, for example:</a> <a></a> <a></a>VIEW FROM SEATS? Is it better to use No followed tags or block it in Robots.txt? Thanks Cee
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mara.lature10 -
Video and text article on same topic but on two separate pages...
we are creating a video based off the content on one of our web pages. i know it's probably better for the video to be embedded on the same page as the article but if they aren't, what should we do to make sure that we aren't diluting our ranking power? Both pages will be going after the same key phrase...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yaelslater0 -
Easy way to get some do-follow links for a new site
I am launching a new website and when I search for "list of do-follow websites" I find lots of people posting their list. Rather than individually sign up for hundreds of sites for one link at a time, is there a tool that can automate this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StreetwiseReports0 -
Internal Site Structure Question (URL Formation and Internal Link Design)
Hi, I have an e-commerce website that has an articles section: There is an articles.aspx file that can be reached from the top menu and it holds links to all of the articles as follows: xxx.com/articles/article1.aspx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
xxx.com/articles/article2.aspx I want to add several new articles under a new sections, for example a complete set of articles under the title of "buying guide" and the question is what would be the best way? I was thinking of adding a "computers-buying-guides.aspx" accessible from the top menu / footer and from it linking to: xxx.com/computer-buying-ghudes/what-to-check-prior-to-buying-a-laptop.aspx
xxx.com/computer-buying-ghudes/weight-vs-performance.aspx
etc. Any thoughts / recommendations? Thanks0 -
Any advice on acquiring "jump to" via anchor link text?
Google says these types of references are generated algorithmically and that users should include a table of contents & descriptive anchor link text. Is there anything else we should take into consideration? Also, does anyone know how this works with pagination? Due to the design of our site, we can't make one really long article, but would need to divide it up into several 'pages'--even though it would all live on one URL (we'd use the # for pagination). Thank you in advance for your feedback.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline1 -
Flow of internal link equity
I've recently come across this: A site changes the URL of one internal page to something more search friendly, and 301's the old to the new as you would expect. They don't change the link on the homepage in the navigation. Instead they keep it to the old URL so they go through the 301 to get to the page even though it's internal. They say if they change the URL it will reset the internal flow of link equity to that page. I've not come across this before and so am not sure what to think. I mean I can see what they're saying but I would have though that it being internal would mean it's different and that the flow to internal pages would just kind of resume as-was quite soon afterwards. Any views?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SteveOllington0 -
Maximum of 100 links on a page vs rel="nofollow"
All, I read within the SEOmoz blog that search engines consider 100 links on a page to be plenty, and we should try (where possible) to keep within the 100 limit. My question is; when a rel="nofollow" attribute is given to a link, does that link still count towards your maximum 100? Many thanks Guy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Horizon0