Anchor text... How hard should one try?
-
I'm looking at a lot of competitor's sites, and they only seem to have gone after root domain anchor text in their link-building campaigns. Since I am just launching and am essentially a one-man band (with some hired help), is it worth my while to attempt to optimize individual keywords or pages at this point, or should I just do as they have done, and try to get domain-name links wherever I can?
For that matter, should I spend more time going for the low-hanging fruit of followed blog comments, forum posts etc, or emailing influencers to try and get editorial links?
Sorry if that last one is a bit broad, and thanks very much in advance for any and all help.
-
OK. So My takeaway from this is that it's probably best (since it's so much easier) to go mostly for brand-related anchor text, other perhaps than in cases where I'm really trying to make a push on a particular page? If that's correct, then my last question is: Are brand anchor text links to a particular page thought to be weighted considerably less by Google than page title anchor text for that particular page?
-
too many people assume that Google penalizes a site for same-word anchor text as a single criteria. They don't penalize for brand related phrases as much as for non-brand keyword over-use, because it's "natural" that a site or company would be referred to by it's brand name by most people. It's much less likely that a site or company would be referred to by an over-abundance of a non-brand phrase, unless that company was so well known by that phrase or those phrases as to be unique enough that those phrases were synonymous with that brand. The overwhelming majority of sites and companies in existence do not enjoy such a luxury.
-
This seems to make a lot of sense, but then I look at the link profile with OSE of a site like Askmen - in the top 500 of the most-trafficked sites in the U.S - and over 95% of their 10,000 or so backlinks are brand name... There are very few that appear to be targeting specific keywords at all. I know one counterexample isn't much, but this was literally the first site of that size that I looked at. If Google had changed its criteria to those you suggest, could one not expect a site like this to be massively penalized?
-
To add to Banar's recommendation, I'll offer that Google has been focused more on quality of trust signals in the past year and change than ever - a big part of that is "how natural does the link profile look?" Too much emphasis on brand only, or only one or two phrases across all or even most of your anchor text is an unnatural pattern. So too is obtaining links purely or mostly from the "low hanging fruit" you describe. You need variety of anchor text, variety of pages links point to, and variety of sources links come from.
-
Hi Zachary,
DO NOT ever target one page only. If you are really very very busy, please, optimize at least couple of pages. There has to be a diversity in links as well as anchor text. Of course, you will concentrate a little more at home page and main keywords but please remember about link and anchor text diversity.
As of the low-hanging fruit - absolutely NO. It's much better to build 10 good links than 1,000 spammy links. Google is smarter than this. Trust me, Google's thousands of engineers are working every day to improve search algorithm. You don't want to take that chance and compete with them.
Good luck & see you at the top
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
-
One or multiple backlinks from business profiles?
Hi, When building diverse backlinks to a website it's often possible to place one, or several, links in the business profile on a directory or social platform such as https://www.broadjam.com/Scambler, https://coub.com/scamblermusic, https://issuu.com/scamblermusic or https://soundcloud.com/scambler. Typically I would only add one backlink to these profiles (and that would be to the home page) but I often wonder if I should take the opportunity to add several links to internal pages and blog posts. Am I missing an opportunity to add more backlinks and spread out the link juice, or could multiple backlinks within short profiles be considered spammy? Any advice would be helpful. Thanks.
Link Building | | JCN-SBWD1 -
Backlinks to an anchor name URL: How Google sees them
I have been searching for the answer to this question and to my surprise have yet to find anything on the web. This is my situation: I have a form at the bottom of one of my pages and have another website that wants to link to this page, more specifically this form. I have an anchor link on the page to this form already. I was planning on sending the anchor name URL to the Webmaster to link to my page so their users will go straight to my form. My question is: do I lose link juice to my URL from this link because it is an anchor name URL? Does Google see this link that goes to a specific portion of my page to be less valuable than if I just linked to the plain URL? Cheers Sean
Link Building | | Tyler1232 -
Total Exact Match Anchor Text Percentage or a Few High Quality Exact Match Backlinks, which is better?
Hello, I was wondering if anyone could help me. I am trying to rank a web page for a competitive regional search term. Upon inspecting all the competitors’ backlinks they appear to using an overly high exact match anchor text to rank on the first page for this keyword. Somewhere in the region of 15 – 55% exact match anchor text. So the question is what does big G provide a heavier weighting for, A.) The total percentage of exact match anchor text for all your backlinks, until it reaches the point of over optimization. A higher percentage up to about 60% will help you rank in the top 3. Meaning I should change a 1,000+ backlinks on multiple domains to the exact match anchor text. B.) Or just a few backlinks with the exact match anchor text but from really high quality domains with a ‘Majestic SEO’ Trust and Citation Flow above 40. Any help would be appreciated, exact match anchor text is meant not to work but it still does.
Link Building | | tomfifteen0 -
Over optimization of Anchor Text | Consequences, Guidelines, Precautions
Hi everyone. I am really worried because of the constant penguin and panda algorithms. I hired two or three SEO agencies and they did some link building for my pages a while ago. And just this time, our rankings dropped almost sitewide some 7-8 positions. I checked our link profile in this site , and we do not seem to have spammy links. I admit that we do have some low link quality, such as directories, blog posts, etc. And it seems to have 10-15 links with overoptimized anchor text, such as keyword exact anchor text, etc. I have a couple of questions regarding this matter? - What entitles an overoptimized anchor text? I mean, i can´t control people linking to me out there, and many of them used the product or brand name. Added to the fact that my former agency used article marketing links with exact keyword. - If i "overoptimized" my anchor text, what is the best solution?, I could change some anchor text by asking some people. Should i disavow, delete? What is your best bet here? - What is (May 27 2013) best practice for anchor text or link referall. I know it will keep changing, but i want to engage in the right practice right now. should link with www.domain.com/keywordpage.html, or how would one look natural? -I saw some recent links that are really strange to me. Could the competition be sending me some bad links in order to augment the situation. Is that something normal?, it sounds strange to me. Thanks for your valuable advice. I know many people are frustrated with these penalties and hits. Because there are still many sites with Mass EMDs, 3-page content, flash sites, that are ranking better than a high quality and engaging one. Any resource is more than welcome to recover from these dropped rankings. Regards,
Link Building | | JesusD0 -
Your Experience with Exact Match Anchor Text Penalties
Hi Moz community! I was wondering if anyone has ever seen a site penalized or dampened because of too many exact match anchor links or know of any examples. I don't want to be overly concerned about it if it is a low risk. Thanks!
Link Building | | SparkplugDigital0 -
Last week the Google Australia ranking for one of my keyword was 10, this week it slipped to 20\. How come ?
Search Engine: Google Australia (organic) Keyword: Staging Hire Previously Ranked: 20 After several article and link submissions it jumped to 10. But in just one week slipped back to 20. Same thing happened with few other keywords too. Why?
Link Building | | i-kreo0 -
External Anchor text page to target?
I have onpage optimised 4 pages on my website example.com/services/chosenkeyword-1 example.com/services/chosenkeyword-2 example.com/services/chosenkeyword-3 example.com/services/chosenkeyword-4 Should I built links with various anchor text to my home page or the exact internal page as above? Cheers.
Link Building | | Socialdude0 -
Is there any tool in/or out of SEOMOZ where we can check anchor texts for internal/external links for a website?
I just want to check anchor text of all the links for a specific URL within a website
Link Building | | merkal20050