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!
-
Try not to focus on percentages. most SEOs try and build a certain % of each type (branded, naked URL, exact match keyword, random anchors, synonym keywords, etc).
The problem with trying to do this is you're manipulating your link profile. The key to building a natural link profile is letting the link type do the work.
Take your Moz profile as an example. You're allowed a link to multiple sites - the NATURAL link type for this is naked. Other sites will let you add an anchor - if you do, use a branded one.
Blog comments are another example. Most platforms will allow you to create an anchor, but it's unnatural. Use a naked URL for blog comments and you can diversify easily.
There's a really good article that goes into detail about it here: http://webris.org/anchor-text/
-
In my opinion the best way to deal with it is to leave it up to them as you want things natural so play it the natural way!
-
Hi Moosa,
Thanks so much for the reply to my question, that makes things a lot more clear for me.
What are some good ways you can suggest I request for natural-sounding anchor text? Or should I just leave it up to the webmaster/blogger/writer who is linking to us?
Luckily I've built some decent relationships these influencers in my industry via networking and social media but I'm still very new to link building and SEO so I'm not sure how to approach these conversations without coming off as spammy. I feel like its awkward to ask anyone for a share/link/mention let alone asking for a specific anchor text.
Please share your thoughts if you have time, I greatly appreciate your opinion so far, means a lot that you took the time to help!
Syed Raza
-
Hi Patrick,
Awesome, thanks for your answer and for the articles, they were very helpful. I am still very new to link building/earning and inbound marketing in general so I truly appreciate you reaching out to help.
The over-optimized anchor text I'm dealing with is a non-branded, competitive search phrase for our market. Theres about 4500 ext. links with that keyword anchor text out of approx. 10000 total inbound links.
At 45% non-branded anchor text, is it likely the reason we are no where to be found in the SERPs for that phrase?
Apparently the previous SEO agency tried:1-contact individual webmasters to remove links 2- submit a disavow file to google and 3- emailed google reconsideration request. There were able to remove 1500 links, bringing the number from 6000 down to 4500. So when Penguin originally hit the site it was more like 60-65% of this one no-brand anchor text. This what I've been told by the business owner.
What else can I do to clean up these bad links? Should I be looking at tools like LinkRisk or LinkDetox as a solution?
Thanks again so much for your time
Syed
-
I don’t think come up with any number or percentage would be a good idea but when I use to deal with these kinds of things… I just make sure that the anchor text should be as natural as possible. I mean if I got 15% of the links pointing back to my site with the Brand name, I probably will be fine with it but if it is a keyword that makes no sense in natural piece; in that case 3% is even a high number.
Hope this helps!
-
Hi Syed,
There is no exact answer to your question as if you ask 10 SEOs, you very well may get 10 different answers. As Google hasn't defined this ration, the answers and opinions on this subject are widely debated and subjective to the industry.
That being said, a good anchor text ratio to consider is roughly 30% branded anchor text, 70% non-branded keyword anchor text. This is information we've looked into and had discussions about with other SEOs and a source of some quality research and data on this can be found here http://sundayseo.net/penguin-2-0-what-should-your-anchor-text-ratios-be/ and another great article here http://moz.com/blog/anchor-text-distribution-avoiding-over-optimization, which does a fantastic job of breaking it down even further. So, a solid anchor text ration should be 7:3 to emulate the Moz blog written by Geoff.
Hope this was a helpful answer! - Patrick
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
-
Can piracy sites linking to you hurt your SEO?
Hello, Our website sells software that we have developed, but there are piracy websites that offer a crack/keygen to our software and are linking to our site. From an SEO perspective, are those sites hurtful to us if their spam score is below 30 and their DA is not 1? We'd like to understand if there is any action we need to take from an SEO point or if our site's SEO is not affected by it. Thank you!
Link Building | | marynau0 -
Page links, header links, footer links
HI I have been hearing about links, you should keep to 100 Just look at this url http://www.powerwale.com/store/acdelco-sealed-vrla-iacdv5l--b-5ah-bike-battery/77031 and go for Recommend section, where you same product applies to different vehicles 1. im confused, should keep it or not?
Link Building | | Rahim119
2. Header links are less, Footer links are less, and in the future, we are planning to add more, will this affect SEO more than 100
i see many ecommerce sites, has menu showing many categories, more 100 categories links
3. Wht about link equity? If I have more links in header and footer page(all this will follow in the rest of pages).
4. More links in the header and footer shows that you are big ecommerce site.. Pls suggest, which is right way and go gain SEO value1 -
When optimizing for a keyword, what would be a good ratio for keyword diversity?
We all have primary keywords that we are optimizing for. For instance one of mine is "Video Conferencing Systems." I've read that you should have about 5-10 different keywords you should optimize for, however, would you want to create more links with your primary keyword than your other keywords or spread them out evenly and optimize for the primary keyword on in the actual content of the page?
Link Building | | ChrysalisSEO0 -
Changing Anchor Text and Domain Name on external sites
Hey guys, I was hoping somebody might be help with my current dilema. We have a international website due to go live soon which has changed its brand name. It is International educational website funded by the government is all I can tell you I'm afraid. They have over 40,000 inbound links many of which are images. I'm wondering what i site best approach. To contact the web master of the top PR sites and ask them to change the listing to the new brand? I was also thinking if I was to leave most of them there as they would be redirected anyhow. Could I be clever and add the new brand link to some of these sites without removing the old and reap the benefits of having two links, the old site url and the new site url? Here is the main dilema though, the commission wish to keep the old site live for 6 months before we can redirect. Thanks, Rob
Link Building | | daracreative0 -
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 -
Why my twitter handle link is not getting counted in links, though for other sites it is counting!
My twitter handle page link is not getting counted, though it is getting counted for other sites
Link Building | | EG0CENTRIX0 -
How do sites have so many 'total links'?
I've been analyzing some of our competitors: essayedge.com and papercheck.com Both sites have a large number of 'total links'... about 93,000 each. The former has about 1,200 linking root domains while the latter only has 195. Even for 1,200 linking root domains, 93k total links seems like a ton to me. Our site has 101 linking root domains and only 299 'total links'. I'm quite new to this whole SEO game and admittedly still learning a TON. Am I missing something here? How do sites generate so many links? This seems nuts to me. Thanks for any help!
Link Building | | TBiz0 -
Did I over optimize on my desired Anchor Text?
I have been promoting a site using mostly the same 3 versions of anchor text. 1. Do I really need to get non related anchor texts to balance my linking profile? e.g. [http://site.com], [click here] and [non related keywords].
Link Building | | ClassifiedsKing
2. What should the ratio be between related and non related anchor text be?0