Link Anchor Text post Penguin 2.0
-
I have heard a great variety of views concerning the anchor text used for link building post Penguin 2.0 but have yet to hear some consensus. Some say the anchor text for external links should be different than internal. Some say brand should be used on external and keywords on internal. Some say brand and a variety of keywords on external. Any thoughts on a strategy consistent with google expectations and guidelines?
-
Hi Jesse,
aHrefs does an awesome job visualizing their anchor text reports, I agree. We're working on updating how we visualize data in Open Site Explorer in our long term plans. Lots of cool things in all of our products.
That said, the quality of the data in the OSE anchor text report is damn fine
-
I'm going to sidestep this question and say that the profile Google prefers is one that is earned, and not built.
Anytime you are able to choose the anchor text of your external links, this is a "built" link and no matter how much you diversify, you risk creating a pattern that Google can detect - if not now, then in the future.
The external sites that allow you to choose your own anchor text, in most cases (but not all) often are not the best link targets.
Is this realistic? For a lot of link builders, probably not. But the key is to diversify as much as possible. A lot of folks will tell you silly rules like 20% branded anchor text, but those rules have changed so much in the past 2 years, where will they be a year from now? Google keeps changing the rules to crack down on unearned links.
Regardless, I'll get off my soapbox and leave you with a couple of posts/videos I made about the subject of anchor text:
http://moz.com/blog/high-value-tactics-futureproof-link-building-whiteboard-friday
http://moz.com/blog/click-here-seo
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
-
It should be a combination of all of the above, in a ratio that normal citations would give you - just like the Nike one is
There is no perfect or correct answer. Look at what natural looks like and model that
Stephen
-
This makes sense Stephen if you have a recognized brand. What about a real estate agent who is licensed through an agency and who works in a specific market? Should the "brand" be name only, name / agency, or name / agency / market area? This one I think is a bit tougher?
For example: Joe Blow, Joe Blow; XXX Realty, or Joe Blow: XXX Realty / market area?
thanks
Brett
-
Am I the only one who finds OSE anchor text report to be a bit... lacking? I mean.. compared to ahrefs.com anyway?
Why does ahrefs so handily win this battle? I don't want to have to convince my boss to buy me an ahrefs membership so I'd like an excuse not to.
-
I thought of recommending that Oleg, but often the people in a niche may also be ranking on the basis of spam, or may not yet have been caught.
If you have well known brands in a niche, then I think that is OK, otherwise I think the megabrands that have no need for linkbuilding are better signals to follow
-
I would replace Nike, Amazon, etc. with competitors in your industry that are ranking for the keywords you want to. Different industries have different definitions of "natural" and seeing link profiles for sites who rank for your keywords would give you a better idea of what you should shoot for.
-
Do what Stephen says... then...
Go look at the backlink profile of people who come in here cryin'.
-
Go to open site explorer and put in the worlds top brands Nike, Amazon etc
That is how Google will expect a natural backlink profile to be
Stephen
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 vs External Links vs Referral Links vs Outbound links
Hello all, I was just wondering if you could explain the difference between all the links above? I'm confused as they all seem to be the same or similar and I would just like to clearly know what distinguishes them from eachother. Thanks for your help, Jayne
Link Building | | NCOREGSEO0 -
Internal Link Building and Link Juice Quality
Hi There! I manage the website for a law office that covers many geographical locations. For very specific niche content, we would prefer to create one piece of content and link to the various geographic locations where we would handle that topic instead of posting multiple variations of the same content for each specific geographical area. If we put a button on these pages that has links to each location, will that have the same "link juice" effect to the pages we're linking that linking directly in the text would? (example: the Where can we help you? button on this page : http://www.zdfirm.com/volkswagen-recall/) Thank you!
Link Building | | ZDAdmin0 -
Do links from the second page of an article pass link juice?
I have been writing for some sites with a high overall page rank and the articles are being viewed as quality by search engines as well. However, they usually put a link to my site at the very end of the article and then break the article down into two pages to increase ad revenue. It seems that I'm not getting much credit for that link even if the page has a high SEOmoz/PR score. I want to know if I am getting the benefit from these links. If not, how do I make sure I get the most bang, even if my link is on a second page of the article? Here is an example of what I mean: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2012/08/22/kanban-for-customers-how-to-increase-transparency-in-your-business/
Link Building | | LawrenceWatkins0 -
Why aren't links to my site from YouTube showing up in my link reports?
Our company is paying for a service to create hundreds of videos/month for us with links back to our primary domain. If I go to YouTube I see the videos with the links, but YouTube does not show in my link reports. Why not?
Link Building | | jtroia0 -
Link Building Equity and Penguin
Dear all After talking with our company's SEO company they have advised that a link builder we employ to post artciles is posting on sites which will have negative page rankings / equity and which Penguin will penalise. These are the sites our link builder is posting on: wordpress.com
Link Building | | gavinr
weebly.com
blogger.com
livejournal.com
tumblr.com
squidoo.com
blog.com Ouir SEO company have advised we ask our link builder to stop posting articles to these sites as Penguin will penalise us because of it. Do you agree? Thanks Gavin0 -
Guest Posts on Sites With Irrelevant Outbound Links
Suppose you came across a website in your niche with solid domain authority that accepts guest posts. However you notice some of the guest posts are linking out to somewhat off-topic sites. If you already have an article that you think would be accepted easily and all you have to do is spend 10 minutes to craft an email pitch, would you do it? Why?
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
Link to those that link to you? Worthwhile?
We have thousands and thousands of sites that link to a domain we are working on, many with low page authority and high domain (bloggers, forum posts, etc). Has anyone experimented with linking to the pages that link to you (not from your site) but from other means in an effort to boost their quality? I'm not sure what method we would use, maybe some relevant blog comments or social votes. But curious if this could be an effective method.
Link Building | | iAnalyst.com0 -
How important are exact keywords in your anchor text?
Hi Guys, I’m relatively new to SEO. I’ve recently started working for a website design company and am in the process of changing the anchor text in the footer of all of our clients sites. At the moment most of them read “graphic design & web development by dara creative” with anchor text being dara creative taking you to our home page. As you can see we are not fully taking advantage of the keywords that could have a higher impact. So I’ve done some keyword research and I hope to concentrate my efforts on the following keywords as the anchor text leading to the home page; website design Dublin, website design Ireland, web developemt Dublin and web design Ireland so it may read something like “web design Dublin by dara creative” However this doesn’t read so well as people may think that the company might be called “web design Dublin”. So the alternative might be “web design in Dublin by dara creative”. So my question is which would rank better? Does google rank the exact searched keywords higher than broader searched words? Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks rob
Link Building | | daracreative0