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
-
How to increase external and internal followed links?
From analyzing my competitor‘s websites I can see that I have way fewer external and internal followed links. The number of followed links my competitors are getting each week increases by around 300. Where do these links come from? How can I increase my followed links ?
Link Building | | wonderdome1 -
How to analyse a big drop in external links
Hi! Can someone tell me the best way to determine what caused a big drop in External Followed Links? I have used tools like remove em in the past to try and get rid of exact match keyword links but I'm unsure if this was the root cause. Our rankings went up the 3 months after this period, but this year they have dropped back to levels from 2015. I'm wondering if this drop has anything to do with this decline. See attached. EHyIy
Link Building | | KerryK0 -
If i give a key word with a site . I want to know how many times that particular keyword repeated in that site ? Is there any tool for this ?
Any tool for finding a keyword or inbound links by crawling all links of a given website
Link Building | | inkrefuge1 -
Keyword links are not showing up in majesticseo or open site explorer
I've been doing link building by writing good content and getting other blogs to post my articles with keyword links embedded. One example is: Original article: http://www.cleanedison.com/blog/setting-the-stage-for-greenbuild-2012-1997 Re-published article: http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/blog/2012/11/7/guest-blog-setting-the-stage-for-greenbuild-2012/683.aspx (Keyword is LEED Certification - it goes to http://www.cleanedison.com/leed) I have 2 questions: Why isn't this backlink being found by majesticseo or open site explorer? Why isn't my original article showing up a google search at all? P.S. Overall, despite my best efforts, my keyword rankings have been falling recently, is there anything obvious that I'm doing wrong?
Link Building | | CleanEdisonInc0 -
Remove links or change anchor text?
I am currently in the process of cleaning up the link profile for a website that has been hit by Penguin thanks to loads of links from free directories with exact match keyword anchor texts (about 200 root domains from total of 300 root domains). I was wondering whether it's best to remove these un-natrual keyword anchor text links altogether, or change the anchor texts to brand (domain name, domainname.com, www.domainname.com, http://www.domainname.com)? I am currently trying to remove these links but was thinking it would be quicker to get to a healthier link profile (in terms of brand/commercial anchor text split) by altering the anchor texts and not removing them. Some of these directories are the worst of the worst on the other hand. Also note that I'm only really getting about a 30% response rate from the owners of these directories. Any thoughts? Many thanks in advance.
Link Building | | ec9awp0 -
Having a link from a foreign site
I just ran an OSE on a competitor of ours that they have a few links from this website, http://www.tz-online.de/ would this not damage there site?
Link Building | | ScottBaxterWW0 -
New PDF Guide. On My site or linked by blogs?
Hi experts, I created a new worth guide about food. Its purpose it to improve backlink by adding website's URL on PDF's footer (spider crawls that one, is it true?). I want send my guide to trusted blogs so users can download new pdf guide on the web. Is it the best way to gain popularity and let my backlinks grow? I've seen that seomoz published is guide such as html pages.
Link Building | | Greenman
Could it be the worth way for me? Thanks a bunch in advance! G.0 -
Links from multiple sites coming from the same server?
Hi SEO Mozers, As I structure my link building campaign I come across alot of directories some of which are located on the same server. If I am to place links on these sites is this is negative signal for big G? The reason I ask is because I see that a competitor has used these various directories and is ranking on the no 1 spot for a moderately competetive keyword. I am able to place links on the sites with almost no effort at all therefore even if it does not pass alot of link juice is it still worth it for me. But if this is seen as a negative I would not persue it. What is your thoughts on this? Thanks in advance, Ross
Link Building | | rtavs0