Ranking Riddle: Too many anchor text links, or not enough of the right ones???
-
This question is about one of my ecommerce sites (www.BestDryingRack.com) which is ranking really well for one of it's money words, and not at all for the other.
See the attached screenshot for a quick overview of the riddle we are facing....
Looking at the "Anchor Text" tab in my MOZ Campaign or in Open Site Explorer would lead you to think that I have WAY too many links with my #1 money phrase. (clothes drying rack, or laundry drying rack, as they are synonyms). And since my product page doesn't rank at all for that keyword, that's what I thought too. (My home page does show up on page 3 or 4 when Googling clothes drying rack)
On the other hand, my #2 money phrase (umbrella clothesline, or outdoor umbrella clothesline) has it's product page ranking quite well in the middle of the first page of Google results.
Digging deeper into the links spreadsheet from Open Site Explorer shows that most of the links are NOFOLLOW (which means they don't really count, right?)
As the screenshot shows, here is the breakdown of links that count:
FOLLOW links with Brand and URL anchor text totals 17
FOLLOW links with #1 money phrase anchor text totals 10, with only 1 to proper product page
FOLLOW links with #2 money phrase anchor text totals 3, with all 3 to proper product page
So the riddle is... Can we improve the ranking of the #1 money phrase by just getting a small number of matching anchor text links to the proper page? (making it like #2's situation)
Or do we also need to get rid of some of the 9 links with the #1 anchor text that are pointing to the home page? (since the home is outranking the proper product page for this phrase)
-
I'm not sure. But just an observation, you have more linking root domains nofollow or not for the first three specific generic anchor text money phrases than for branded terms. That seems a bit unnatural to me 1. because of the brand vs. generic contrast for 3 highly related terms and 2. because its exact match for high traffic generic and then the number of linking route domains for related anchor text terms drops off significantly instead of a smoother curve
I'm not saying its penalty level unnatural. But in the context of the well known brands you're competing with, of which most of them above you I recognize, they likely beat you out on the brand metrics.
Additionally, your first money terms are much more competitive from what I can see in terms of search volume than your second terms. Like clothes drying rack is getting 4000+ searches a month while the umbrella one is listed as 30. And trends confirms that contrast: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q="clothes drying rack"%2C"outdoor umbrella clothesline"
I don't really believe in getting rid of links unless I'm walking into a clients site already penalized. Maybe one or two if I have control over them over time. I think you should pivot into brand building and testing different content assets for deeper links, video maybe? If they don't perform naturally at all, cut them or revise/enhance them. That will insulate you better from the risk of aggressive link building that's been done and help raise all phrases over time.
And nofollow does matter. A lot. As well as nofollow vs. follow break down across brand vs generic anchor text in the context of your industry. A strong natural link profile example in your industry would be hard to find because your so niche competing with conglomerates. But being extremely natural (ie. not trying to have any control over the anchor text of sites linking to you at all)
-
Hi Carl. No warnings in WMT.
And since the vast majority of the links are NOFOLLOW, they shouldn't count towards any algorithmic penalty either. (that's the common opinion at least)
-
Hi, did you get any warnings in WMT about the site? I've had clients who have received a penalty (not our doing!!) for over optimised baclinks. They could still rank for other keywords but the keywords which they had been promoting too much were down on page 4 or 5.
Carl.
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 Many Backlinks does I need to rank?
A keyword Olehana private label cosmetic company that also my competitor have 4k ref domain for this keyword. So Do I need more than 4k ref domain with anchortext "olehana" Please help me. Thanks.
Link Building | | arainbadami0 -
Buy domain, redirect, get all the good links (+link juice) and disavow the spammy ones?
There is a domain for sale that has a quite nice profile and a lot of good backlinks, but also quite a few spammy ones. This domain has a Spam Score of 14% acc. to Moz Link explorer, ours has only 2%. My questions: 1. The domain and the good backlinks are related to or close to our content/keywords. But we are worried whether the "spammy" ones will hurt us. Does anyone has experience with this? 2. Would it help if we disavow the spammy backlinks afterwards? And if so, how do we do that? Add new domain to search console, disavow the bad links and then redirect the entire domain to our domain or redirect the domain first and then disavow from our property? Many thanks for your help!
Link Building | | pissuptours0 -
Many Blogs or One Blog?
Hi There, Presently I have many blogs across a range of domains, each one targeting the client/type of user interested in that product (or service in this case). I originally set up this strategy to use the content of each blog to create a "link juice farm" (our products are educational courses so have a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT target market depending on the course area), which in turn links to the related page/course on our main site. My question is, is this a viable strategy, or should I be focusing on building content only on my main site blog with subcategories for each product? Link juice farming on product/client specific blogs, or focus on content for each course niche on main site, that is the question?! Thanks in advance for you insights here people. I really appreciate you taking the time.
Link Building | | love-seo-goodness0 -
Generic Anchor Vs Branded Anchor?
Hi, I have always been very careful when building links, making sure that I use lots of variations relevant to my site in the anchor text, so keep the ratio diluted. However, in recent weeks I have stumbled on some SEO's focussing wholly around branded anchor terms for future link building, I feel that a branded focussed link profile looks more natural. I'm interested to know what the rest of Moz community think about this? Thanks
Link Building | | dt18070 -
Traditional link requests still the right way?
Is the traditional way of link building wherein we send requests for two way or three way links still important? I feel posting articles, blog commenting, blog posting, forum commenting etc are better means to build links... but since I am still new to this industry I may be wrong. Please suggest.
Link Building | | KS__0 -
Duplicate content: One version is commercial and the other non commercial for linking purposes
I wanted to know if the following plan would be considered white hat or black hat. I am in the process of creating an instructional how to guide for a particular task. My how to guide will be a DIY guide so that with time and practice, customers can do this task for themselves and save money. I think that it would be a great resource. I want to ask other websites for links to this how to guide but the problem is that my blog has a commercial feel to it. These other websites that I plan on asking for a link probably won't link to my site because it promotes my services. They would be non profits, etc. My site needs to appear non commercial. In order to get around this stigma, I want to duplicate my how to guide twice on my blog. The first instance will be for normal visitors searching for my services. In the second instance, my banner, my tel number, my call to action will be deleted from my site. My website will be neutral. When I request a link from the non profits, I plan on sending a link to the neutral portion of my blog in the hopes that they will see a non commercial site and link to me. What do you think? I could also tell the webmasters that I've neutered my website for this resource only. Will this plan give link juice to my root domain?
Link Building | | jamesjd70 -
Great idea to get back links in short order; however the links would be unrelated. . Is it worth the effort . BTW, it's a white hat method. Should I proceed?
I have come up with a very creative way to get some great back links using white hat methods. The problem is that the back links to the site would be to an interior page or external promotional website which then have links back to the main website. What kind of value for the main domain would this potentially achieve. What are peopLes thoughts on this idea?
Link Building | | FidelityOne0 -
Rel="canonical" or text link?
Lets say I have a commercial website that nobody will link to so I create a non commercial website with some awesome content that is highly linkable. I then get 30 - 40 quality links pointing to this site which I then either rel ="canonical" back to my main site to the page with the replica content or do I simply add a text link from the new site to the old sites homepage. Which would benefit my commercial site most? We are seeing the strategy of building a non commercial site for links becoming more and more popular. The second question is is it worth the effort for in effect one backlink?
Link Building | | fazza470