Bad links or poor content?
-
Hi all
I have a meeting with our seo company tomorrow.... Our sites have dropped considerably for our main keywords. My opinion is that the links that have been built for us have focused on too few anchor text and many "money making" keywords. Also to deep pages rather than the home page. They are saying it's poor content (I guess they would). We copyscape check all content before putting live.
Has anyone any evidence I could present to them to back up my argument?
-
Hi
We had top listings for the main anchor text used, these are the terms which we have dropped out all together for....
The drop happened on the 28th Sept...
-
Another thing you can do is take a look at your analytics sorted by organic search traffic. Then, take the dates of the known Panda updates and Penguin updates and see if any of them correlate to the time of your traffic drop. If it correlates to Panda then it's a content issue, and if it correlates to Penguin it's a links issue.
It could be both though...if you've got 70% of your links having keyword anchor text this is a risk for Penguin.
Another thing you can do is sort your analytics according to anchor text. Let's say your top search term was "blue widgets". If your organic traffic for "blue widgets" dropped drastically after April 24 then it's likely Penguin.
But it's tough to know though as there were Panda updates on either side of Penguin.
-
Yep - thank you.
-
That is far too high Jason - with 300 links, I would want to see no more than 15-30 using that anchor text alone. There should be variations such as:
- New mobility scooters
- Used mobility scooters
- Mobility scooter review
- Best mobility scooters
- Mobility scooter parts
- Electric mobility scooters
Then take some of these longer such as:
- Where you can buy mobility scooters
- If you need a mobility scooter
You get the idea
Andy
-
An example being "mobility scooters" anchor text forms 209 links out of a total of 318.....
-
Then I would be looking for that to diversify in some order. If you had 100 links, to have 5-10 with the same anchor text is acceptable, as long as they form part of a sentence. You don't really want links that just sit there on their own amongst other links and that serve no real purpose. There are exceptions to this rule, however.
Would have to see some to give you more of an idea.
Andy
-
I've used the Open Site Explorer and it's showing that in some cases 70% of the links are based on one anchor text...
-
Try Open Site Explorer here Jason.
Also, building links to a wide selection of pages, and not all to the home page, is a positive, not a negative. However, diverse anchor texts and related referring sites play a big part in this and as long as a link has a good reason to exist on a page, I am sure Google will see this as a plus.
Andy
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
-
When we use 'link:' for who get the link, how come google show us the same domain as a link.
the search result show the domain of its own. what is is? and is it meaningful as a link?
Link Building | | onedaykorea0 -
Content Now
This is a general question, I was wondering if anybody had used content now before, either for content writing or link building. I've had them mentioned to me by a manager but would like to hear the opinions of others too. Has anybody used anything similar for creating content at all? Thanks
Link Building | | onlinechester0 -
Total Links vs Google Webmaster Site Links
I am interested why the numbers between SEOmoz and Google are so different. In SEOmoz we only show 17,000ish links from 190ish domains. In Google, we show 200,000+ links from 370 domains. Why is there such a dramatic difference?
Link Building | | webspecdesign0 -
Linking to a site in the US from a site in the UK - Good, bad or not important?
Would linking to a site in the US from the UK do harm or good if the site being linked to is industry related? i.e. a UK web design company linking to a US web design career site.
Link Building | | Tone_Agency0 -
Good Link VS Bad Bounce Rate what wins?
Hi all, this is only my second question on SEOmoz since becoming a member over three months ago so sorry if it’s a little bit basic. As small part of one of our websites promotion we have been giving really good advice on good authority blogs/forums related to our product website. One of the sites we have offered advice on is from a US website and we added a link to our guide for the problem to our UK site. In hindsight the product solution is not branded the same in the US so our bounce rate is over 90%. So the question is when is a link from a related site not worth the high percentage bounce rate?
Link Building | | jtay1230 -
Are link exchanges bad for SEO these days? Also, is adding my site to free yet relevent directory sites a bad idea?
I operate a computer services company in Eugene, Oregon called "Eugene Computer Geeks". We do a lot of web design, and need incoming links to my site very badly. Lately I've been asking clients if they would link to me, but they almost always ask for a link in return. If we exchange links, does Google penalize my site? Would the incoming link be better for SEO if I'm not linking back to the other site? ALSO Is it possible that manually submitting my site to free, yet relevant web directories would hurt my rankings? It's not a big deal to me if it doesn't help my rankings, as I see a benefit to having my site listed, but wanted to make sure there wasn't a chance that it would hurt my rankings. As far as I know all the directories are free from SPAM, porn, warez, or anything like that. Thanks!
Link Building | | eugenecomputergeeks0 -
Links and keywords
A rather simple question, If i have a paragraph and have the words cat, dog and bird would it be a good idea to have them all linking to the same url? or is better to have them all going to different urls?
Link Building | | Vetshopgroup0 -
Are 36 links from one site to nested pages better than one link to the root domain?
I have a Driving School website www.1stclassdriving.co.uk. The site is structured geographically with 36 area pages, one
Link Building | | Brian_Worger
page per area post code and one page per Driving Instructor. I am trying to develop links and have found a site (da91 pa
63) where I can create area links to each of my area pages if I
wish. Is it best to just create one link to the root page or
should I create 36 individual links to each area page? - which is most valuable?0