What is an example of good anchor text?

[ChrisHolgate]

Hi,

I'm sorry to ask yet another question but the advice I get here is always so accurate and friendly that it's almost addictive.

After Penguin I'm constantly thinking about what looks natural to Google.

With regards to link building I can't really envisage any situations where natural anchor text would be anything other than either the name of our company or 'click here'.

The only exception to this I would have thought would be if a customer was referring to a particular product on our site.  Even in this situation I would have thought they'd have said 'I bought my cheap cartridges at Refresh Cartridges' with the company name still being used as the anchor rather than 'cheap cartridges'.  I think if we're stripping it down to what works best from a human rather than search engine perspective then using 'cheap cartridges' rather than the company name would be just a little odd.

Therefore my question is whether, when link building, I should just use my company name for all anchor text rather than trying to artificially mix it up to make it look ‘natural’.  While I could vary the anchor text by saying 'cheap this', 'high quality that' and playing around with the text, almost certainly when used in context with whatever I am writing this would look unnatural no matter how many combinations I used.

Is this correct or would my overuse of the company name make what should be a natural looking linking strategy look unnatural and harm results by not conveying the potential content of the page by using targeted anchor text.

Thanks for your help.

Chris

[ShaneO]

You want to know what links look natural to Google? The answer >>> natural links! Links that you have earned, not built.

Well said!

[ChrisHolgate]

I'm hearing you, honestly I am.  This is a steep learning curve for me but I'm trying to take on board everything that I've been told.  Your advice especially been invaluable and you are a credit to the SEOmoz forum.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not going off on a link building binge, I was just asking the question because some of the advice out there is conflicted.  As much as anything the question was designed to enhance my overall knowledge and allow me to understand the Google algorithm a little better.  The question wasn’t necessarily designed to be linked to a Refresh Cartridges link building campaign nor our on-going attempt to get bad links removed.  In many ways I’m now a little bit embarrassed to have this post public on the forum since we’re now talking about my business and website so candidly.

With regards to McAfee, I didn’t state that I placed a huge value on the link, it just so happens that as part of our membership we do get a link.  The same with PayPal - I don’t think it’s going to set the world alight but it’s a link on a widely recognised site and if I’m offered a link on it then I’m going to take it.

The press release has had 500 reads on the PRWeb site alone, ignoring any third party news sites that it was syndicated to.  As such, ignoring what Google wants, I would argue that from a human perspective it was potentially worth doing.  I’m probably not going to do another one for some time (if ever) but just wanted to check that I wasn't doing anything stupid by making the link read 'www.refreshcartridges.co.uk'

When it comes to my grammar I’m almost certain that both 'parner' and 'partners' could be potentially correct but we may need an English teacher to answer this one.  The fact that the preceding word ‘cartridges’ is pluralised makes ‘partner’ flow better and a quick search on Google News shows companies using both in equal measure:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&gl=uk&tbm=nws&q="partners+with"
https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&gl=uk&tbm=nws&q="partner+with"

I will ensure that anything I write is looked over by a second pair of eyes in the future!

I would love a link from a major manufacturer promoting our scheme but alas it’s not going to happen; not only do they all have their own recycling schemes but the idea of cartridges coming back and being refilled horrifies them.  I will however try to push the ITF for increased exposure using their partners as leverage and see how I get along.

I’m finding the whole SEO learning process incredibly interesting and like the idea of getting to a stage where I have sufficient knowledge to have complete control of my destiny.  I do promise you that I’m trying to take everything on board but every now and again expect a question to pop up that implies otherwise as I attempt to increase my knowledge by looking at things from two different perspectives.

Thank-you again for your help and for being so open and honest.

I’m off climbing now to hopefully take my mind off Google and Penguins for a few hours 

[RyanKent]

Based on your efforts Chris, I need to share the disappointing news that, in my opinion, you still have a major disconnect with your understanding of links as they are valued by Google. Here is a rule of thumb I would use for links. If you can directly control the anchor text, the link will often have absolutely no value and there is a higher chance of the link harming your site then helping.

Do you think that PRWeb press release added any value to your site at all? I suspect it is more likely that every link created from that press release is considered by Google to be manipulative. Let's think about this for a minute.

• Who wrote the content? YOU DID
• Who created all the links in that content? YOU DID
• Why is PR Web publishing your article? BECAUSE YOU PAID THEM, PERIOD

I am not suggesting the charity recycling project you were involved with was not a good event. What I am suggesting is those articles and links likely are not sending any positive signals to Google. Ask yourself over the next 60 days:

• how many legitimate people will perform a search in Google, find your press release, and then be satisfied with it as a search result?
• how many people will like / tweet / +1 your release?
• how many people will visit the article and click on the links to visit your site? Even if they do, how many of those will not bounce?

The answers to those questions help offer some idea of how Google may value the link. I would suggest the numbers are close to zero. I easily found the article: http://uk.prweb.com/releases/2012/8/prweb9805687.htm

I do not mean to be harsh but the quality of writing is low. There are many grammatical errors starting with the article title: "Refresh Cartridges partner with the International Tree Foundation to Plant Trees and Recycle Cartridges". I believe the term "partner" should be "partners". The rest of the document contains numerous other errors.

So how can you turn this around? Encourage OTHERS to spread the word about your effort. A few ideas:

• contact other organizations who support recycling and environmentally friendly ideas. For example, the Green Business Bureau (gbb.org) and similar organizations. Let them know about the cartridge recycling program. They may add it to their standards, make a post on their site, send an e-mail blast to their members, etc.

• contact supports of the International Tree Foundation, the organization you are working with, and let them know about your efforts (I wanted to provide examples but it seems like their site is down).

• reach out to any printer manufacturer, cartridge seller, etc. If you can catch the interest of one manufacturer or major retailer, it would exceptional. The link you could receive from Dell, HP, etc. or a major retailer promoting your recycle program would likely offer more value then ...well, it could be worth a lot

The link from McAfee is nice, but I would suggest it is not worth anywhere near the value you place on it. McAfee is not endorsing your product or services. They are endorsing that your site meets a certain level of security. To be clear, it is a desirable link to have but I would trade it in an instant for an authentic link from a blogger who shared a story of how your company went above and beyond to help them.

[SEOKeith]

Fair enough, I would use a combination of brand name and your naked URL.

Optionally chucking in the occasional anchor text link (vary this) is not going to hurt either and it will help your rankings... (providing your back link profile is currently clean).

Hope that helps...

Keith

[ChrisHolgate]

I'm not actively building links per se, and I'm not looking to rank for a specific phrase.

My current goal is to become a little more well established by writing about what I know best (without being in the slightest bit spammy) in publications geared towards our target subject matter.  Coupled with good old fashioned genuine customer reviews and feedback, this seems to be the future for us.

Hopefully some humans will find it useful and the search engines will recognise a little of that respect and good rankings will follow 

[SEOKeith]

Are you actually building links to rank for a phrase?

What is your goal from link building??

[ChrisHolgate]

Many thanks all for your helpful responses.

Ryan - I feel I should clarify my question somewhat as I don't think I made it clear exactly what I meant by ‘link building’.  You know more than anybody that I have experienced first-hand the result of some questionable article submission and some dodgy link directories that we are now being penalised for half a decade later.  I’m not talking about more of the same but the tone of your reply implies this is how I came across for which I apologise.

There are instances where just going around improving your offering to your customers can result in some nice links on reputable sites being earned in the process.

For example, we have recently signed up to TrustPilot who aggregate customer reviews, forward them to Google Product Reviews and provide a link back to us on our review page and potentially their home page if we get a really good review one day.

Then there’s McAfee Secure who supply those little Hacker safe logo's that people seem to still like – They have a directory of ‘Hacker Safe’ merchants that we are to be included in.  PayPal recently have also said that because we are a good customer we can be included in their merchant directory.  These are all good quality links on well-respected sites.

I have also been a little bit proactive and we have done a press release via PRWeb for a charity recycling scheme we're involved in and I've written for a few industry specific publications.  The primary target for these publications is humans rather than search engines but of course there would naturally be a link back to us; it would be weird doing a press release or writing an article for a magazine and not mentioning your company.

My question literally was just that any of these links are just saying Refresh Cartridges or www.refreshcartridges.co.uk and in my mind this is perfect... It’s how it would be naturally written, it’s not spammy and as such in my mind it won’t get me in any trouble.

There are still however a large number of people talking about mixing up the anchor text to make it appear ‘natural’.  I was just concerned that in my attempt to keep everything above board and au natural by literally using just my company name that I could be inadvertently kicking myself in the teeth.

[RyanKent]

**After Penguin I'm constantly thinking about what looks natural to Google. **

Why would you spend even a moment of your day thinking about such a thing? Spend your time on anything that is constructive such as how to service customers better or improve your shipping process.

I assume you are like most webmasters and wont appreciate the above advice, even though I would suggest it is some of the best advice you will receive. Therefore, I'll go ahead and answer your question a bit differently.

You want to know what links look natural to Google? The answer >>> natural links! Links that you have earned, not built. Links that other webmasters or people have provided based on your excellent product and service.

The bottom line....legitimate links from 3rd parties which have been earned will look natural to Google. Any links you built will likely appear as unnatural to Google, it's just a question of time. Google earns close to 3 billion a quarter. Their ranking system uses links as a strong ranking signal, and they are currently spending a lot of resources into stopping unnatural links. Whatever manipulation you attempt will either be successful or fail. If it fails, then it doesn't matter. If it is successful for you, then others will be successful with it as well and it will be caught.

[SEOKeith]

The main problem is, spammy anchor from spammy sites...

It's ok to link to a page or a company using a descriptive anchor text an example would be "I have heard SEOmoz provide some awesome SEO Tools, I would recommend checking them out if you need some simplified SEO software."

You are going to run into problems if all your anchor text is saying "SEO Tools" and there is no diversity in your link profile... Organically, most people link with naked URL's or the name of your site unless they are linking to a specific resource or service you provide...

However if you just build on brand the whole time you are not going to rank for your desired keywords / phrases...

[TheSEODR]

Examples of good anchor text that isn't branded is text links that flow within the content. Most of the blog posts on SeoMoz include tons of links but they don't come across spammy because they are intended to support, not mislead. I think good anchor text should include these elements:

• relevant to the topic of page or site
• read naturally within context
• descriptive of linked page

Review some of the blogs here to get a better understanding of good anchor text.

[kyleNeedham]

Hi,

The best way to keep it natural is just to use the anchor text which would make most sense to a user, also i don't think using your brand as the anchor would ever look unnatural since it is the natural thing to use when linking to someone so that would be safe.

kyle