Best anchor text strategy for embeddable content
-
Hi all
We provide online services, and as part of this we provide our clients with a javascript embeddable 'widget' to place on their website. This is fairyly popular (100s-1000s of inserts on websites).
The main workings of this are javascript (they spit html iframe onto the page) but we also include both a
<noscript>portion (which is purely customer focused, it deep links into a relevant page on our website for the user to follow) and also a plain <p><a href=''></a></p> at the bottom, under the JS. This is all generated and inserted by the website owner. Therefore, after insertion we can dynamically update whatever the Javascript renders out, but the <noscript> and <a> at the bottom are there forever.</p> <p>Previously, this last plain link has been used for optimisation, with it randomly selecting 1 out of a bank of 3 different link anchor texts when the widget html is first generated.</p> <p>We've also recently split our website into B2B and B2C portions, so this will be linking to a newer domain with much established backlinks than the existing domain. I think we could get away with optimised keyword links on the old domain but the newer domain they will be more obvious.</p> <p>In light of recent G updates, we're afraid this may look spammy. We obviously want to utilise the link as best as possible, as it is used by hundreds of our clients, but don't want it to cause any issues. </p> <p>So my question, would you just focus on using brand name anchor text for this? Or could we mix it up with a few keyword optimised links also? If so, what sort of ratio would you suggest?</p> <p>Many thanks</p></noscript>
-
SamuelScott is 100% right, I only wanted to add, that we should stop thinking about the anchor. It is allways manipulation in the room, when we think about anchor. Thats my opinion.
-
Seeing as this replaces a traditional link, which I'd very much doubt would carry a nofollow (these event organisers would not be aware of it) then would you agree that a 'powered by' link under the box would be ok without a nofollow, as long as we just use our brand as the anchor text?
How about a brandname + keyword anchor text? Such as "ticket sales powered by xyx"
I hate to sound negative, but this part of your response still seems like you are trying to use the widget to build links that will pass "PageRank" and increase your rankings. My recommendation is still: Do not do this at all! Such links are completely artificial and are one of the old tricks that Google definitely looks for today. Just because other sites do it right now does not mean that Google won't hit them at some point.
I stand by my recommendation: Use a no-follow attribute and make the name of your brand the anchor text. At the very most, putting a desired phrase such as "ticket sales" close to the link -- but not included in the actual link -- may help you out of the idea of co-occurance (sometimes called cocitation).
If you want to get more links, I suggest going through Moz's category archive for that phrase to see how to get links that are 99% natural and earned (rather than artificial and built).
-
Great, thanks for the info.
I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be seen badly by Google as it provided a valuable tool for the website - selling tickets. The 'old way' of doing this would be for the event owner to link directly through to our website ('buy tickets here...'), but using the widget we can improve conversions - keeping to Google's rules of designing for the customer, not SEO, I think this fits the bill. Adding a 'powered by' link also enhances customer trust?
An example of another company doing something similar, is
Eventbrite: http://www.outlookfestival.com/tickets/ (they include no on page link, just an iframe but that includes a link)
Ticketscript: http://deershedfestival.com/tickets/ (an optimised keyword, and it's almost hidden (tooltip) which I'd prefer to keep away from.)
Seeing as this replaces a traditional link, which I'd very much doubt would carry a nofollow (these event organisers would not be aware of it) then would you agree that a 'powered by' link under the box would be ok without a nofollow, as long as we just use our brand as the anchor text?
How about a brandname + keyword anchor text? Such as "ticket sales powered by xyx"
-
First, I highly recommend that you do not use widgets on external websites as part of any "linkbuilding strategy." (I'm not saying that you are using the widgets as a cheap way to build links -- they can have a lot of valid uses, so I just hope that you are using them in the correct way.)
Matt Cutts, the head of Google's webspam team, said in 2013 that any links in widgets on third-party websites should have the no-follow attribute added to them. In Google's eyes, here's the simple reason why: Why should the search engine give you "credit" for a link that you have given yourself? The only links that Google wants to count are those that are 100% natural and "earned." The Penguin updates -- among other actions -- are all aimed at moving the search engine in that direction. (Here's Google's guide to no-follow.)
Secondly, don't even think about keyword-based anchor text. (No-follow or not, you just don't want to risk incurring the wrath of the Penguin.) If you need a link back in the widget, just make the brand name of the website / company into the link.
In summary:
1. Add no-follow to all widget links
2. Make the brand name the anchor text
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
-
Facet Values as Anchor text
Hi I've reviewing our internal linking structure & have found that the facets/filter buttons on a category, are crawled and have anchor text to each link, for example: The anchor text to filter the product listing results by those under £50 would be: | Facet Value Less than £50.00 (15) Less than £50.00 (15) | This also has the source URL & destination URL of http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/lockers I haven't come across this before - is this an issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Anchor text optimisation
Hi, I would like to know the best anchor text practices. I think it's same for On-page and Off-page. As per the internet seo buzz, people suggests differently as below. Which actually work out? Exact match with target page title or partial match Will "Read more" and "learn more" are Okay? How much it must be relevant with URL? Thanks, Satish
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Re-using content
Hi, I've just sold the domain for a website, so I'm free to re-purpose the content over to another website I own. How can I make sure that Gg doesn't deem it as duplicate? Do I need to let Gg naturally realise that the 'original' website no longer has the content on it? Do I need to hold-off putting the content live again? Should I notify Gg by-way of a de-index request, etc (assuming the domain won't incur any difficulty if I do this)? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | newstd1000 -
Penalized for Similar, But Not Duplicate, Content?
I have multiple product landing pages that feature very similar, but not duplicate, content and am wondering if this would affect my rankings in a negative way. The main reason for the similar content is three-fold: Continuity of site structure across different products Similar, or the same, product add-ons or support options (resulting in exactly the same additional tabs of content) The product itself is very similar with 3-4 key differences. Three examples of these similar pages are here - although I do have different meta-data and keyword optimization through the pages. http://www.1099pro.com/prod1099pro.asp http://www.1099pro.com/prod1099proEnt.asp http://www.1099pro.com/prodW2pro.asp
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Stew2220 -
How do I create a strategy to get rid of dupe content pages but still keep the SEO juice?
We have about 30,000 pages that are variations of "<product-type>prices/<type-of-thing>/<city><state "<="" p=""></state></city></type-of-thing></product-type> These pages are bringing us lots of free conversions because when somebody searches for this exact phrase for their city/state, they are pretty low-funnel. The problem that we are running into is that the pages are showing up as dupe content. One solution we were discussing is to 301-redirect or canonical all the city-state pages back to jus tthe "<type of="" thing="">" level, and then create really solid unique content for the few hundred pages we would have at that point.</type> My concern is this. I still want to rank for the city-state because as I look through our best-converting search-terms, they nearly always have the city-state in the search term, so the search is some variation of " <product-type><type of="" thing=""><city><state>"</state></city></type></product-type> One thing we thought about doing is dynamically changing the meta-data & headers to add the city-state info there. Are there other potential solutions to this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | editabletext0 -
What would be the best domain choice?
Hello I got a website www.keywordCA.com and I'm ranking #1 spot on "keyword" but what I notice if you have the exact match you get more site links and etc. Like this keyword that match with my domain name "keyword CA" The ideal name will be www.keyword.com but is taken and the owner don't want to sell the domain (at least he is not using it, is just parked) and I also got the domain www.keyword.net Do you think www.keyword.net will be much better than KeywordCA.com in order to get more exposure and google will generate more site links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jpgprinting0 -
Link Anchor Text
As I keep studing SEO I reach to the conclusion that the Anchor Text from other site is crucial to get more positive results for our website and for the link-building strategy. My question is - Is it better to have an Anchor Text to my main link our should I ask for a determine targeted keyword? Tks in advance! Pedro M Pereira
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PedroM0 -
Content Focus
I have a particular Page which shows primary contact details as well as "additional" contact details for the client. GIven I do not believe I want Google to misinterpret the focus of the page from the primary contact details which of the following three options would be best? Place the "additional" contact details (w/maps) in Javascript, Ajax or similar to suppress them from being crawled. Leave "additional" contact details alone but emphasize the Primary contact details by placing the Primary contact details in Rich Snippets/Microformats. Do nothing and allow Google to Crawl the pages with all contact details Thanks, Phil
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AU-SEO0