Do we know if inbalanced anchor text distribution also applies to internal links?
-
I have the pages of my site linked together very well with editorial links in my copy and blog posts. But now I'm starting to wonder post-penguin if it's a problem if all my internal links to a certain page have the same anchor text? Or is my internal link juice not powerful enough to set off a red flag? I don't think I've seen this addressed anywhere or if we even know the answer to this or can only speculate.
-
That's a good theory. It's not like I've loaded internal links in every other sentence of every blog post. I only did it where it would help the customer by giving them more information. Between all my blog posts, I think each post ranges from 0-4 links, 4 being a rare occasion, one or two being the most common. I guess I'm not too worried, since post-penguin we are now #1.
-
This is a great question, and from some posts I've seen it seems that plugins like SEO Smart Links have caused issues with Penguin: http://www.itechcode.com/2012/05/19/vital-seo-tips-after-penguin-algorithm-update/
So I would say yes. Be careful using things like SEO Smart Links or KB Linker, as they can cause you to unnaturally link certain words all the time, in a way that is not good for user experience either.
It's harder when you are talking navigation, etc, but I posit (and I have no proof of this) that menus and such are not as at-risk to be hit with Penguin as overdone in context links.
As we always say, what would users expect to see? Give them that.
Hope this helps
-
Hi Marisa,
This is a good question and one I could only really speculate on but here is my thinking:
We know that Google likes links to be natural (or at least look natural) hence the focus on over-optimization in the recent update. So it would be natural to assume that Google will be looking for the same thing with internal links. This then raises the question what would look natural for internal links? Of course, as the website owner has control over the internal links, it would be safe to assume that most (if not all) internal links are going to have the same anchor text. This is just natural. However, external links are completely different and it would certainly look unnatural if all the anchors were the same commercial term.
Anyway, that's my thoughts.
Adam.
-
Hi Marisa,
from everything I've read about Penguin and it is quite a bit I would practice the same best practices for internal links as I did for external links. Never make a link over 115 characters is the rule from Google I would just make sure you avoid them thinking your keyword stuffing even though you most likely are just building your site correctly. On page anchor text aside from the length are not yet part of Penguin. Here's a list of some of the on page things they look for.
- Pages Where The Title is Missing or Empty* Duplicate Page Content Analysis* Duplicate Page Title Analysis* Pages That have Long URLs (> 115 characters)* Overly-Dynamic URL Analysis* Meta Refresh Analysis* Pages Where the Title Element is Too Short* Pages Where the Title Element is Too Long (> 70 Characters)* Pages Containing Too Many On-Page Links* Missing Meta Description Tag Analysis* Robots.txt Analysis* Meta-robots Nofollow Analysis* Meta-robots Analysis* Canonical Tags Analysis* Indexed URLs Analysis* Total URLs Receiving Traffic* Total Keywords Sending Traffic
I will look in detail for you on this and get a much better answer I apologize things are hectic right now.
Sincerely,
Thomas von Zickell
-
Thanks. That's good basic information about anchor text in general, but says nothing about how it relates to Penguin.
-
I hope this helps http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/internal-link
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
-
Thousands of links coming from an iframe
We have an iframed calculator on one website (www.renewablesguide.co.uk) which has a text link to another of our websites (www.solarguide.co.uk) which is where the calculator originates. We allow other sites to embed the calculator which gives us the benefit of a followed link back to our site. However in the case of renewablesguide (which we own) we've added a tab to the calculator on every page which GWT shows up as 24 000 links from this site hitting the Solar Guide homepage. As the link is held within an iframe would this amount of links be seen as spammy?
Technical SEO | | holmesmedia0 -
Can you be penalised in Google for excessive internal keyword linking?
I have an online shop and 3 blogs (with different topics) all set up on sub-domains (for security reasons, don't want Word Press installed in the same hosting space as my shop in case one gets hacked). I have been on the front page of Google for a keyword, lets say 'widgets' for months now. I have been writing blogs about 'widgets', probably about 1/4 of all my blog posts are linking to the 'widgets' page in my shop. I write maybe 1-2 blogs a week, so it's not excessive. This morning I have woken to fine that the widgets page in my shop has vanished from Google's index. So typing in 'widgets' brings up nothing. It hasn't dropped in the rankings, it's just vanished. A few weeks ago I ranked 3 or 4. Then I dropped to about 6. A couple of days ago, i jumped back up to 5 and now it's vanished. If you type in 'buy widgets', or 'widgets online' or 'widgets australia', I have the #1 spot for all those, but for 'widgets', I just don't exist anymore. Could I have been penalised for writing too many posts and keyword linking internally? They're not keyword stuffed and they're well written. I just don't understand what's happened. Right now I"m freaking out about blogging and putting internal links on my website.
Technical SEO | | sparrowdog0 -
How do you take down a link
Salut from Sunny wetherby UK 🙂 Having just watched a whiteboard fri clip all about the "Penguin Update" i want to know how to take down a link. I feel a site ive been working on has been pecked by the penguin. I did build inbound links on a specific commercial term and shiver me timbers is dropped oof the SERPS from top 5 to ziltch, yiles!! So my questiuon is please:
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
if you find an inbound link using a target term how do you kill it? Thanks in advance :_)0 -
Affiliate links
I have a wordpress blog and was wondering the best seo practice for doing affiliate link redirects? Peter
Technical SEO | | PeterM220 -
WIki Contextual Links
I want to understand what are Wiki Contextual Links and how are they helpful for SEO. I hear google likes them. Is that true?
Technical SEO | | KS__0 -
Mini site links?
Can anyone point me to information about the "mini" site links on the Google search results or tell me how to get them set up? These aren't the full site links that show 3 by 3 under the first listing but small text links that appear for certain results. (See attached image for reference.) Are these something that can controlled/requested? NAj6E.png
Technical SEO | | DVanSchepen0 -
Text in div
When you use text in a div like this: <div id="container"> <h1 id="doc-header">Your Business in your Location - Your Services</h1> <p>Top industries are getting hit.p> <div id="branding"> <a href="#"> <img id="logo" src="images/logo.png" alt="Your Site" /> </a> </div> Are there SEO consequences when you put text in divs?
Technical SEO | | PlusPort0 -
Too many footer links?
Hi. We're working on http://www.gear-zone.co.uk/ at the moment, and I was wondering what's everyone's opinion on footer links. There's quite a lot on the page, and I was wondering if there might be a few too many. If so, what would be the best plan of action? Remove them altogether, stick them in an iframe or in a bit of JS so they can't be crawled? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | neooptic0