When is it excessive anchor text usage?
-
Hrello fellow Mozzers.
There's been alot of writing about excessive anchor text usage, and as an SEO I get it. Don't get to crazy about it, but - WHEN is it excessive anchor text usage?
Is it excessive if I have 50 links distributed in 10 blogposts?
Is it excessive if I have a 250 links distributed across the entire site?It's fair enough that excessive anchort text usage get's you penalized, but it's freakishly annoying that nobody tells you WHEN you've reach the line that defines "excessive"...
Anyone??
-
I think you have to separate out a couple of issues here...
First off, 250 links distributed across a site or 50 across 10 blog posts may have very little additional value than a few links on a site or 10 links on 10 blog posts. Linking root domains generally have a lot more impact than total links. If you've got 50 links on 10 posts to the same site, it's very likely some of those links are low quality (even not having any idea what the anchor text is). I'm assuming you mean inbound links all to the same site (and even the same page), though. It's really tough to talk in generalities.
It depends a lot on the targeted text. If your exact-match anchor text is your brand name, or if it's product-oriented but matches your domain name, you'll get more leeway. If Apple has 10,000,000 links to "Apple, Inc.", Google won't care. If Bob's plumbing has 1,000 links and 90% of them are to "buy cheap viagra", that's going to look bad really fast. So, "excessive" can be very situational.
If you're targeting one phrase over and over, most of your links are built/paid (not "natural") and that phrase is keyword-loaded without reflecting your brand, you're probably pushing too hard. Diversification is very important. I think targeting is important, to a point, but it's really easy to over-think it.
-
I agree with ipositions, we have found that over 80% starts looking suspect and will be penalised
-
I have seen clients who have gotten warnings in webmaster tools with even less. More like 23% (which was my first comment when we picked them up..sadly an agency before just went nuts with 1 term...so time for me to clean it up )
-
Now that sounds exciting...
-
We've noticed that rather than being a number it's a percentage. Once you hit 80% of all anchor text being the same term you will usually get penalized. This doesn't seem to apply to new sites though.
-
Pashmina is absolutely true in the fact that not anyone can give you an accurate limit. Also, pointing out the 30 anchor links that she is specifying leads me to believe it's based on a great article that Randfish wrote.
This is the link to the article here: Testing the Value of Anchor Text Optimized Internal Links
You will notice that he replies to a commenter with the following questions:
"Very interesting Rand. I've always wanted to test the effects of internal anchor texts.
You stated that excessive internal anchor text linking can trip an automated penalty, what do you consider an excessive amount? Thanks for opening our eyes to this."
Rand's answer was based on his observation as the following:
"I honestly can't say where the limit lies, but in both cases I observed, there were in excess of 30 links sitewide that were clearly anchor text optimized to push rankings."
Although this info seems to be valuable information, it may be outdated and hold less value to the current time.
-
I don't think anyone can accurately say what the threshold is, or if there is a single number for all sites. I've read somewhere a while back that the threshold is around 30 anchor links that are specifically for optimization (and not for user's benefit).
If you still have heavy footers, your links can be immediately reduced with a redesign of that area. Removing internal and barely used navigation elements will help too. Analyzing your site flow via Google Analytics can help you figure out where to tighten a page and get rid of links that no one is clicking on.
In general I think we all have to become more purist, and sparse in our internal anchor text linking. And then get very creative with designing a very good navigation and architecture for our audience. The Rational Surfer Model lends some insight into this too.
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
-
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 -
Content toggle, tabs ad accordion for seo text
Hello there, I have two questions. 1. I want to ad seo text in content toggles, tabs and accordions. does Google robots view as seo text , eg, H1 text as it would be written direct on the page? 2. About Pinguin and link building. I am seeing up an onlineprintshop, where any industry can become a client. Lets say a medical company will be our client for prints. If they link back to our onlineprint page does Goole evaluates the link as a link from a related industry. Thanks for your kind answer. Kind Regards Mike 8bMCt
Link Building | | niceguyseo0 -
Should you guest post on a site that allows unrelated anchor text?
Suppose a blog has pretty good authority and quality articles but allows guest posters to use really random anchor text in their bios like Miami mexican restaurants when the blog is about blogging. Is there a risk that all the outbound links on the site will be devalued?
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
What is the general consensus on using Text Broker for content?
I have seen generally good reviews for http://www.textbroker.com. Does anyone here have personal experience with it? We are considering using it for content creation for guest blogging for clients. As far as we have found, this is all within Google's acceptable webmaster guidelines. In general, how much editing is required from an article provided by Text Broker? Thanks!
Link Building | | outofboundsdigital0 -
Over Optimised Anchor Text
Hi. We are new to the seomoz community so just getting the hange of it. We have run a few reports and found that we have to many links with the eaxct match anchor text. We are as a result we feel penalised and held back at no.7 or lower. There doesn't seem to be any other logical explanations why aren't higher besides that. What would the best way to deal with this over optimisation issue? Thanks
Link Building | | GardenGamer
Shannon0 -
How to have an internal call to action with an anchor that employs the correct internal linking practices?
I wanted to put a call to action in my internal profiles, but I'm not able to get out of the classic "check out" and "learn more" links. Right now the best copy I've been able to come up with is: <nickname>is using StyleJam for his web design portfolio - check out the benefits </nickname> Where "check out the benefits" is a link to my home page. I wanted to understand first of all how important this is, and second what techniques you use for internal calls to action. TIA.
Link Building | | ngw0 -
Does having backlinks with anchor text keyword1 negatively effect SERP position for keyword2?
I have recently been gaining a lot of backlinks which have anchortext that is not exactly related to the keywords we are targeting. I have no control over the anchotext used in these backlinks in this situation. Given that we already rank in a certain position for keyword2 based on the existing backlinks we have with keyword2 in them. Will adding another say 50 high authority backlinks with anchortext keyword1 hurt our rankings for keyword2? What i am trying to ask here, is can you dilute existing backlink keyword anchortext by gaining backlinks with different anchortext?
Link Building | | adriandg0 -
Www.text-link-ads.com, worth the trouble?
Has anyone used http://www.text-link-ads.com for link building. It is a service I've been reading a fair deal about and I was hoping to hear everyone's opinion on it.
Link Building | | calin_daniel0