What should my optimal anchor text look like, given cannibalization risk?
-
We have a content page with the explicit goal of ranking highly for "raised garden beds". We drive traffic from this page to our various types of raised garden beds in our store. The "FarmsteadRaised Garden Bed" is one such product.
http://eartheasy.com/grow_raised_beds.htm
Should we avoid using "raised garden beds" in the anchor text of the internal links pointing to the products in our store because of cannibalization?
We recently changed the anchor text of the internal links to have keywords instead of just "click here" or "more info" - was this a good idea?
What should our optimal anchor text look like?
-
I am not certain of the mechanics of exactly how the tool works. Please change the page title as I suggested then you and I can try running the tool again and see if the results change.
The words in your title are supposed to indicate your targeted keywords. All those extra words could be confusing the tool.
-
"raised beds"
-
The "explanation" offered in your message is perfect.
Please provide the URL for the page along with the keyword you used.
-
The one thing that contradicts with this is that SEOmoz report cards keep stating that our anchor text on links is considered cannibalization. How do we "modify our anchor text" without using "raised beds" or "raised garden beds" and risk this issue of cannibaliation?
"buy a raised bed", "raised garden beds", "Composite Timber Raised Beds", "Cedar Raised Beds", "Farmstead Raised Beds", "Cedar rectangular raised beds", "raised beds and supplies", and "Complete Raised Garden Bed Kits"
Explanation
It's a best practice in SEO to target each keyword with a single page on your site (sometimes two if you've already achieved high rankings and are seeking a second, indented listing). To prevent engines from potentially seeing a signal that this page is not the intended ranking target and creating additional competition for your page, we suggest staying away from linking internally to another page with the target keyword(s) as the exact anchor text. Note that using modified versions is just fine (for example, if this page targeted the word 'elephants', using 'baby elephants' in anchor text would be just fine).
Recommendation
Unless there is intent to rank multiple pages for the target keyword, it may be wise to modify the anchor text of this link so it is not an exact match
-
Thanks for these observations! This page as well as many on the site are legacy pages from 10 years ago which do not adhere to modern best practices, and the bold characters and header mis-use are great examples.
-
There are over 200 factors that ultimately determine a page's ranking. A page could choose to not follow many of them and still rank well. In your case it seems Sunset ranks as #1 which is largely due to their very strong DA and PA. Yours is good, there's is better.
With respect to the title, it is given a weighting based on how many words it contains and the position of the words. When you add additional words to your title, your weight is diluted amongst those other words. Your focus is not as strong and you will not rank as well.
As I look at your site I see other opportunities for improvement. Some of your alt text may be seen as inappropriate such as "Build your own raised garden bed with anchor and stacking joints". The ALT tag is supposed to offer you an opportunity to describe the picture in a few words.
Your site also has 9400+ bold characters on the page. That is definitely too much. You can use CSS or other means to make the text appear darker. Bold should be used for words which need to stand out on the page. If you use bold for the entire page, a search engine will most likely view it negatively and at best disregard the weight and at worst penalize you for abuse.
-
Great points.
We used to rank #1 on Google for "Raised Garden Beds" forever, until just a few days ago and now we are last on page 2. If you look at everyone who outranks us they are a bit more specific with page title.
Why would reducing the amount of information in the page title help us, when the top dogs seem to be doing otherwise?
-
Hi Aran.
A few suggestions regarding your page:
-
Your current title tag is "Raised Garden Beds: How to build, and where to buy a raised garden bed or planter | Eartheasy.com". Change it to "Raised Garden Beds | Eartheasy.com". Move the rest into your meta description.
-
While you are making this change delete your meta keywords as it is rather large and offers no benefit.
-
Your current H1 tag is Eartheasy and your H2 tag is Navigation. Change your large "Raised Garden Beds" message at the top of the page to an H1 tag. Your navigation should not be presented with a H2 tag. The H# tags are page headers indicating important topics discussed on the page. Think of it in terms of newspaper headlines where H1 is the main title.
As to your questions, changing "click here" and similar tags to actual anchor text is a great move.
Cannibalization happens when you have multiple pages on your site competing for the exact same keyword or phrase. As long as you vary the text and remain consistent, you are fine. You can refer to your "Farmstead Raised Garden Bed" page using that phrase as anchor text as long as you always point to the same URL. You are welcome to reuse "raised garden bed" in other anchor text as long as you include another brand or text with it.
-
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
-
Internal Links Query - What should be use as anchor text
Hello All, We are looking at our internal links and most of them say "More" or "View All" The "more" anchor Text links - are usually positioned on the Body Content as we only display a portion of the content and then the user clicks more to see all the content ? - Should we be changing the "More" Text to something more keyword /phrase friendly i.e " more information about carpet cleaning" or "more information on Tool hire" or would that be deemed as spammy ? thanks Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
We are looking for an SEO Company to hire to assist in upgrading a site to Wordpress
Does anyone have a good recommendation or better yet personal experience with one?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JCMotors20 -
Correct Internal Linking Flow / Keyword Cannibalization
Hi, Would like some advice re our internal linking structure and possible keyword self cannibalization on our ecommerce site.. Will try and give you an overview. Imagine this page structure: Site
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs2010
Brand 1
Brand 2
Brand 2 Shoes
Products
Brand 2 Sweaters Then say in Brand 2 Shoes page we have the shoes, e.g., the products labeled as Brand 2 Shoes "Name of Model"
Brand 2 Shoes "Name of Model" Now, what I'm worried about is that if I do a search for "Brand 2 Shoes" it should bring up my landing page right? But it doesn't, it brings up some of the products instead... I'm worried that we may be self cannibalizing some of the keywords - and thinking of changing the product page to be "Brand Name of Model Shoes" or "Name of Model Shoes by Brand" Any ideas or comments appreciated! Thanks all0 -
Do onpage named anchors play a part in SEO?
Hi Is having on page links from top to bottom etc using keywords as anchors a good methodology? Does it help the page for those words? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet1 -
TLA / Text Link Ads
Hi folks, Curious to hear what people know about the TLA situation since reports surfaced that they'd been de-indexed. It looks like it's all been quiet since those early reports. Not many people admit to using TLA so perhaps you've heard something on the grapevine... nudge nudge wink wink.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MattBarker0 -
I would like to know your biggest failure in an SEO project
love to know what mistakes people have made in the past that can help me and others not to make the same mistakes going forward ...thankyou
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ReSEOlve0 -
Webpages look like they have been de-indexed
Hi there, My webpages seem that they have been de-indexed, I have no page rank anymore for my webpages, my homepage which was a PR4, is now saying N/A, plus lots of my rankings have dropped, what check should I been making to identify that this is the case? Kind Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
Optimize root domain or a page in a sub directory?
Hi My root domain is already optimized for keywords, i would say branded keywords, which i do not really need, as the traffic from these does not give me any revenue ( mostly consists of our employees/returning visitors). Now i have run on page optimization for set of keywords for root domain which i like and got good grades (hurray!). But yet my website does not show up on search engines for those keywords. I have got pretty good link building done to my root domain but this is not done for all keywords (but done for branded keywords). It just happened, please do not ask why. So i decided to optimize inside pages in sub directory with new set of keywords i like. Starting with link building, giving anchor text on various other website linking to this particular page. These pages are not ranked in top 50 in google. Is that a good practice? or I would not need those branded keywords, hence should I re-optimize my root domain to suite my new keywords by giving less preference to branded keywords? Is this a good practice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MiddleEastSeo0