How to deal with over-optimised anchor text?
-
Hi,
We took on a client a few months ago, who came to us after seeing a drop in rankings. After cleaning up the site, we concluded that their drop is more than likely down to over-optimised anchor text. The keywords that have mainly been affected are the ones that have a majority of links with the exact anchor text.
The links have built using blog networks, articles and there are some comments thrown in for good measure. We have no way of getting them removed.
Hmm, links can't hurt you!? So what is the best solution? Has anyone had any success over coming this issue? What sort of time scales are we looking at?
Gareth
-
Submit a reconsideration request explaining the situation in as much detail as you can. Worst case scenario you will find out if it's a manual or algorithmic penalty. If no manual action has been taken then you will have no other option but to try harder to remove the links from dodgy sites.
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
-
Tools which automatically check anchor text
Tools which alert of low anchor text diversity Hey guys does anyone know of any tools which can alert you of low anchor text diversity across sites? Any backlink tools/data sources have alerts like this? Cheers.
Link Building | | jayoliverwright0 -
'Powered by...' anchor text links
Hi Mozzers! We're a web design and dev agency in Kent, UK who don't really provide SEO services (tend to outsource and focus on our core competencies!) Have never really bothered putting 'Powered by...' or 'built by...' anchor text links at the foot of our client sites that link back to ours. Obvs we have a huge back catalogue of opportunities to add this to various sites which, if clients agree of course, would push our backlinks above our key competitors overnight (according to OSE). Good idea or Spammy/back hattie??? Cheers guys.
Link Building | | mjs_adr0 -
What is a healthy ratio of keywords being used as anchor text in external links to our site?
Hi, One keyword is being used as anchor text in way more external links to our site than any others and I'm getting a lot of mixed advice whether or not to do anything about it. The agency we previously used had managed to remove about 1500 links (out of 6000) however our rank for that search term is still very poor. **We have 4500 external links with the anchor text "ABC" and the next highest amount of external link anchor text is the term "XYZ" which has about 400 links. That is over 10 to 1. What is a healthy ratio of anchor text between different search terms to aim for? ** Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Link Building | | Syed_Raza0 -
Does google really care if anchor text is the "brand name"?
I have read a lot about how it is a good idea to build links with your "brand name" as the anchor text. I am somewhat skeptical about all this. I suspect that the only thing that you need to do is have a wide variety of anchor text, some no follow links, and some links without any anchor text at all or just your URL. IDoes anyone have an opinion on this? Also I am somewhat confused about what a "brand name" is anyway. Obviolusly it applies to words like "Apple Computers" or seomoz but can I "make" my own name, i.e. Paul W. Matthews, into a "brand Name" aulby putting it in the title of my home page and just using it a lot as anchor text? If yes, is this a good idea? thanks, Paul
Link Building | | diogenes0 -
Text Link vs image link?
Which passes most link juice a text link or an image with the correct 'alt' attribute? Do the pass the same amount or is one more valuable than the other?
Link Building | | SamCUK0 -
I was looking for the best practice to use anchor tags...
Seomoz says NOT to use your anchor terms on other external pages as you will cannabilize your main page - this is news to me. Appreciate any input on this.
Link Building | | impressem0 -
How Important is Placement of Anchor Text
I'm working on a series of guest posts to help promote a site. These are competitive, high quality posts from a well-respected resource in the industry. I placed the author introduction at the front of the posts, with anchor text for the keywords we are targetting (e.g., "This is a guest post by John Doe, a [keyword] who ... and writes about [keyword]."). I understand that having the anchor text in a prominent location - such as near the front of the post - will probably be more authoritative than a sentence at the very end. My question: how significant is this difference? The blog that I am posting on wants to include author information at the end only and only have one link using the site name (which doesn't contain keywords). The post I sent had two deep links using keyword-rich anchor text, placed at the beginning. I am trying to decide whether to walk away and keep shopping the material around.
Link Building | | Falconberg1 -
Anchor text distribution
Hey SEO Mozosphere - Working on a link buying strategy. I know it is wise to target not only anchor text links but also branded text links to keep your anchor text distribution looking natural. However, do you think it would be too risky to ask for branded text links only from low PR sites and focus the more valuable keyword anchor text links on high PR sites?
Link Building | | znotes0