Question regarding back link analysis and anchor text
-
Hello,
I am looking at my competitors back link analysis and comparing a range of link based metrics from the top 10 SERPS. I am then putting this data into excel and comparing our back link profiles.
When looking at the anchor text distribution i am not sure whether to look at exact match anchor or phrase match anchor. For example, one of the companies I am looking at holds positions 3 and 4 in the SERPS. Looking at their linking profile I can see that only 1.7% of their links use the exact match anchor 'widget'.
Looking at their phrase match anchor is an entirely different story, 93.5% of anchor links contain 'widget' somewhere. i.e. 'cheap widgets', 'widget sale', 'buy widgets at www.examplewidget.co.uk' etc.
Obviously their exact match and phrase match anchor distribution tell a completely different story. THIS IS TRUE FOR MANY OF THE TOP 10 SERPS. Therefore, should I be looking at phrase match anchors instead of exact?
Side note: would people recommend targeting anchors with 'brandname widget' based on predictions of Google giving weighted anchor more weight.
Robert.
-
As with the panel, I would look at phrase also. Exact is too narrow, and you never want to get all your anchor as exact anyway as this looks a bit manipulated.
Put those broad phrases into Google's keyword tools and see where the most hits comes from and move forward from there.
-
Observe your natural link profile and you will notice people don't always choose to use exact match anchor text - in fact that's pretty rare when it happens. Google knows this and if you stick to an exact match you will create a suspicious backlink profile which would bite you back later on. My recommendation is to diversify anchor text and mix it with brand and variation of the phrase.
Example:
exact match
brand exact match
exact match brand
partial match
exact match: www. url. cometc.
-
You shuld try to match phrase.
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
-
Blocking Competitive Analysis Tools in robots.txt.... Worth it?
I've been considering blocking third party crawlers for a while – specifically those crawling my website for the sake of competitive analysis, such as SEMrush and Ahrefs. I'm familiar with how to do so, but when researching the question I found practically no one asking the same question. The guides I've found on what to put in your robots.txt make no mention of whether to block competitive analysis crawlers. Which makes me wonder whether this is a good idea after all. My chief concern here is rival sites going after the same search terms we target – one of our competitors in particular has an uncanny way of going after the same searches we are. I know blocking crawlers won't prevent competitors from watching our content, but it will make it slightly harder for them. Is there any major drawback I'm missing? Any big reason not to go ahead and block SEO analysis crawlers?
Competitive Research | | davidwaring0 -
Only 4 Internal Followed Links
Hello , i compared our (www.bighunter.net) and competitor pages. Only 4 internal Followed Links are in result page . I don't understand why Thanks for any answer
Competitive Research | | lbecarelli0 -
Another how the *%#^ is this site ranking question
I saw a question posted by someone a while back asking how a certain (in their opinion crappy) site was ranking in the top then. It happened that there were some good reasons for that site ranking. Well.... I have stumbled on a site that seems to be ranking for (almost) no reason at all: relatively low DA/PA very few inbound links (none seem to be that special) thin content The only thing I can think of, is that the site has the keyword in the domain name. But looking at the search results, there are other domains with exact match keyword in URL and somewhat stronger metrics that don't rank.
Competitive Research | | inhouseseo0 -
Certainty or Uncertainty of SEO / Link Building
Hey there I'm new to both SEO and Seomoz. I have this personal site I've been working on SEO wise (slowly since I started learning from 0) and I have reached a point where the only missing thing for me to do is build links. However, the competitors for my site have thousands of links. From all I've read on the web regarding SEO&LinkBuilding, including articles in this site...the old method of spamming links wherever/whenever possible is now being penalized while the practice of manual/hand-built links of higher quality and lesser quantity is rewarded. So I went ahead and approached several linkbuilding companies and one thing that struck me was the level of uncertainty regarding the chances of getting a site to get to the first page. I understand there's factors you cannot predict or control, such as what your competitors are doing on the SEO front...but ultimately, I'm curious as to how do you effectively gauge the possibility of getting to the top page of any keyword combination? Especially when dealing with clients... since apparently whoever 'guarantees' you anything is a fraud or uses blackhat techniques...how do you pitch the 'uncertainty' to the client? Likewise...how do you know if you can make it to the top page or viceversa? Cheers
Competitive Research | | Sotkra0 -
Link Analysis Tool
Does anyone have/use any really good link analysis tools? I have been using SEOmoz open site explorer but don't find it that indepth or find that many links. I don't mind paying once the link analysis tool is good and I can export links to excell. I was thinking of buying this software http://www.link-assistant.com/features-and-editions.html Cheers,
Competitive Research | | Socialdude0 -
Links in the independent.co.uk
So I was doing some research in OSE and come across links in different articles on the independent.co.uk. There are more than three but I have included three below. Do a find for "blinds" on the articles. What I find interesting is that each article has a different author. Which probably rules out a friend doing a favour. As far as I can see, of all the many different types of advertising programmes the Independent has, this is not one of them. Which begs the question, how are they getting these links? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ashcroft--belize-the-only-thing-he-respects-is-dollars-1811725.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/house-and-home/gardening/shooting-stars-a-new-book-by-anna-pavord-pays-homage-to-the-glorious-bulb-1785219.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/outbreak-1939-imperial-war-museum-london-1776002.html What do you think?
Competitive Research | | KevinHenney980 -
Why are links not being added to my Domain Authority
I have just compared my domain authority with competitors and I can see that they are outscoring me on links from YouTube etc. Even though I have same set-up with regard YouTube and Squidoo etc and am also featured on Dmoz... these are not being added to my domain authority. Any ideas?
Competitive Research | | manedog0 -
Gathering SERP analysis data
Hello, Im gathering data to complete the spreadsheet found here http://seomoz.box.net/shared/g3vz0kxbbp (using Ben's). A lot of the data can be gathered from open site explorer, the moz tool bar or via the key previded but where is the quickest place to gather the below info or is a lot of it manual gathering? Lk RDs KW Usage LDA Score Xct Anc. Txt Links Xct Anc. Txt RDs Part Anc. Txt Links Part. Anc Txt RDs Domain # Linking RDs Tweets FB Shares Blog Links
Competitive Research | | RikkiD220