Can you explain why a site with loads of keywork anchor backlinks is ranking well?
-
Hi All,
A couple of years ago my site got punished and i kind of figured out it was due to keyword anchor text backlinks.
I recently was considering getting a new SEO company and found one that promotes another company in my industry. However, when i look at the backlinks, of the website they do SEO for, via open site explorer - I noticed nearly all of the backlinks are keywords.
website in question is http://goo.gl/6nRzLi
And if you see the search results here: http://goo.gl/9bXoxY they are ranking on first page with very big brands - and have done for about a year - but nealy all of their backlinks are the keywords in this search...
I understood this is the kind of thing that killed my website 2 years ago - are these backlinks ok? should i still consider this SEO company to work on my site, i 100% do not want my site to be penalised again so any advice appreciated.
thanks
James
-
I agree with Richard,
A little research shows that this website does not seem to have a whole lot of linking domains/back links. Being that is is such a small website I don't think Google is worried about penalizing them until they get a bit larger. In which case if they continue the same keyword anchor text practices they may run into trouble.
On a good note: Seeing as they do not have a lot of high quality back links you should easily be able to beat this company rankings fairly quickly without having to resort to the over optimized anchor text practices. This should be a fairly quick project depending on your budget and desire to move up fast.That's great news for you !
Remember, sometimes when a website is ranking high for certain keywords, it's not always because the website and seo are done so well. Sometimes it's just they have no competition doing very well at trying to beat them. Which I think may be the case here.
Hope that helps,
Joe
-
There aren't many links showing to the site at all in OSE or Ahrefs. Rarely would a site with so few links receive a penalty. They also have their main keyword in their branded name, which I think can partially shield them since it's part of their brand name.
Remember as well that these tools include only a portion of the links that are out there. Most sites such as social/branded and NAP (name, address, phone#) listings don't show in OSE. These sites tend to have more links that include the brand or url or generic items such as "View Website" that can be balancing out the keyword rich anchor text as well.
-
Thanks for the response Dirk,
Please understand i am not an "SEO" and do not currently employ an SEO, hence i asked the question - i kind of figured it was shady, but just needed some confirmation from SEO experts such as yourself.
Thanks for confirming.
-
I think that the answer that Richard gave you on your first question is also applicable on this one.
Apart from that, you should see SEO as a long term strategy, if your competitor is ranking well with shady techniques, it's may be good on the short term, but he'll loose on the long term. I saw plenty of my competitors take a dive in rankings after the Panda update in May, while quite a number of our sites gained substantial search traffic (+25%)
If you already got punished for over optimised backlinks, I would certainly not take that road again, and be very careful with any SEO company which would propose this strategy.
rgds,
Dirk
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
-
Not ranking
Hi,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SharonEKG
so our website (www.18brandz.com) has been up for 8 months now and has not been ranking yet, we are indexing, moz crawler SEO issues are regularly fixed and we are down to about 25 non major issues, i started using google lighthouse to optimize and had made changes. we post GOOD quality in house written unique content, we follow an SEO templet of guideline i wrote for titles/meta title tags, structure, site speed has been optimized and as for the moment we rank A OR B with no major issues on all speed checking sites possible (gtmetrix/google speed insights/ webspeed... etc) but nothing. and i cant figure out why we wont rank, our field of digital marketing is a tough one and very competitive , i know, yet not ranking for so long seems odd. our only know fact major disadvantage is the lack of links and no link building strategy. any suggestions? any idea?1 -
Weird behavior with site's rankings
I have a problem with my site's rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mcurius
I rank for higher difficulty (but lower search volume) keywords , but my site gets pushed back for lower difficulty, higher volume keywords, which literally pisses me off. I thought very seriously to start new with a new domain name, cause what ever i do seems that is not working. I will admit that in past (2-3 years ago) i used some of those "seo packages" i had found, but those links which were like no more than 50, are all deleted now, and the domains are disavowed.
The only thing i can think of, is that some how my site got flagged as suspicious or something like that in google. Like 1 month ago, i wrote an article about a topic related with my niche, around a keyword that has difficulty 41%. The search term in 1st page has high authority domains, including a wikipedia page, and i currently rank in the 3rd place. In the other had, i would expect to rank easily for a keyword difficulty of 30-35% but is happening the exact opposite.The pages i try to rank, are not spammy, are checked with moz tools, and also with canirank spam filters. All is good and green. Plus the content of those pages i try to rank have a Content Relevancy Score which varies from 98% to 100%... Your opinion would be very helpful, thank you.0 -
Can too many NoFollow links damage your Google rankings?
I've been trying to recover from a Google algorithm change since Sep 2012, so far without success. I'm now wondering if the nofollow on external links in my blog posts are actually doing me damage. http://www.smartdatinguk.com/blog/ Does anyone have any experience of this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | benners0 -
Site rankings steadily decreasing - do I need to remove links?
Since mid-April, our ranking have been steadily declining. Our two main keywords are 'nuts and bolts' and 'bolts and nuts'. 'nuts and bolts' dropped from 7th to 46th in May and has recovered slightly to 28th, and 'bolts and nuts' moved from 7th to 16th, and is today 24th. Ranking on keywords we specialise in have fared better, but they're fairly niche. 'bsw bolts' has moved from 2nd to 4th, and 'imperial bolts' has moved from 1st to 4th. I think my link profile is the issue. I don't think we've been penalised by Penguin directly (I may be wrong, I don't think we'd be page 2 on such a competitive term as 'bolts and nuts' after Penguin if we had been penalised.), but I think what's happened is that sites that link to us have been penalised, resulting in a knock on effect. Does that sound right? Here's my link profile: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.thomassmithfasteners.com</a> I've been slowly building relevant links with prospective customers and kept up a very basic social media profile - just the odd blog post and sharing on Facebook and Twitter. Do I need to delete all the directory links? We do have links from directories that don't look fantastic, more are shown in Webmaster Tools than are listed here. Some of the directories no longer seem to exist, I take it I don't need to do anything and Google will catch up in those cases. Should I attempt to remove (or disavow) all links with names like best-directory etc? Or should I just concentrate on building better links? I'm not sure where to start! Any advice is greatly appreciated. Best Regards, Stephen
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stephenshone0 -
How can we get a site reconsidered for Google indexing?
We recently completed a re-design for a site and are having trouble getting it indexed. This site may have been penalized previously. They were having issues getting it ranked and the design was horrible. Any advise on how to get the new site reconsidered to get the rank where it should be? (Yes, Webmaster Tools is all set up with the sitemap linked) Many thanks for any help with this one!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | d25kart0 -
Can you see the 'indexing rules' that are in place for your own site?
By 'index rules' I mean the stipulations that constitute whether or not a given page will be indexed. If you can see them - how?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Visually0 -
I have a .com site but I am only ranking good on google for Canada and not the USA.
We are located in Canada but sell our products world wide. We are ranking ok on google.ca but are not in the top 50 on google.com. Is it due to my ip address? Is there any tips that you can give me to help up my rating for google.com. Any info you can provide me with will be amazing. Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | drewzal0 -
How Can I move a site higher in Google Places?
As we all know Google Local Business/Places now has significant real estate for many searches. What I find hard to understand is what makes the difference between the different positions. Is it solely based on the content in Google Places itself or is it regular ranking factors. I am (like everybody) on a hell for leather search to try and rank above my competition but having studied their Places information I do not think there is much I more I can do. Suggestions hat have actually worked for you?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kdaly1000