Is it still important anchor text?
-
Hi folks,
my question is related to inbound links how important is anchor text? Can you give me one example? Also what about outbound links. Should I add longer anchor text?
Miško Macolić Tomičić
-
The key point to me in any anchor text discussion is this: Google doesn't want you to control your IBLs. Most sites that link naturally will not use the same anchors over & over.
If your link profile is natural and you don't control a whole lot of it, yes anchor text is very valuable. If you control most of it and you're adding to the same stuff over & over, it's very bad for you and can result in your rankings dropping.
This is the exact reason SEO can be so difficult. The same link, the same anchor, the same page on the same PR site linked at the same time = everything 100% the same = can still have two very different effects on a business depending on what the existing site, profile and anchors look like. So there's no clear answer to many SEO questions like this. The answer is "it depends."
-
Here is a good Moz article on the subject: http://moz.com/learn/seo/anchor-text . It includes examples.
"Key Points:
- If many links point to a page with the right keywords in their anchor text, that page has a very good chance of ranking well. Real examples of this include the search engine result pages for the queries, "click here" and "leave." Many of the Google results for these queries rank solely due to the anchor text of inbound links.
- People have a tendency to link to content using the anchor text of either the domain name or the title of the page. This is an advantage to SEOs who include keywords they want to rank for in these two elements.
- Too many inbound links to a page with the exact same keyword-rich anchor text may cause Google to scrutinize that site’s link profile more closely; using manipulative methods to acquire keyword–rich anchor text is not recommended."
[The emphasis is mine.]
And for outbound links: http://moz.com/learn/seo/external-link
"Optimal Format
Use descriptive keywords in anchor text that reflect the same topic or keywords the target page is trying to target. It's not necessary to use the same keyword text every time—in fact, doing so can trigger spam detectors. Instead, strive for a variety of anchor text that enhances context and usability for your users—and for search engines, as well."
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
-
Total Exact Match Anchor Text Percentage or a Few High Quality Exact Match Backlinks, which is better?
Hello, I was wondering if anyone could help me. I am trying to rank a web page for a competitive regional search term. Upon inspecting all the competitors’ backlinks they appear to using an overly high exact match anchor text to rank on the first page for this keyword. Somewhere in the region of 15 – 55% exact match anchor text. So the question is what does big G provide a heavier weighting for, A.) The total percentage of exact match anchor text for all your backlinks, until it reaches the point of over optimization. A higher percentage up to about 60% will help you rank in the top 3. Meaning I should change a 1,000+ backlinks on multiple domains to the exact match anchor text. B.) Or just a few backlinks with the exact match anchor text but from really high quality domains with a ‘Majestic SEO’ Trust and Citation Flow above 40. Any help would be appreciated, exact match anchor text is meant not to work but it still does.
Link Building | | tomfifteen0 -
Link text
Can anyone give me any advise regarding anchor text in back links on external sites. I have about 8 bloggers reviewing our products on their sites. When they link to our site, they either use the words of our company name or something like “click here” as the words in the link. There are a few key words that we are wanting to improve for so should those words be made as the live link on their site?
Link Building | | Hardley1110 -
Are niche directories still helpful as good links to have to help ranking in the serps?
Are niche directories still helpful as good links to have to help ranking in the serps or has Google discounted directories? The Niche directories that i would be using are not spammy at all and are quality sources of info. Thanks mozzers!
Link Building | | Ron100 -
PR web anchor text
We are submitting a press release today for a contest we are doing and it is actually news worth compared to a lot of things on PR web. Our question is PRweb.com still worth using? If we use them should we put an anchor text in it? We have one link to our home page and one to the contest page and we were going to have one link to a different page. But will linking to the third page with an anchor text be to much?
Link Building | | DoRM0 -
Who can advise in real-time delay until rich text snippets first appear?
Community, Has anyone here implemented rich snippets for clients/own properties and can advise how long it took for them to appear in Google Thanks
Link Building | | tomypro0 -
Backllinks to our site but via redirect (still SEO helpful?)
Hi, A large website may link to us but via their internal redirect mechanism. So it would be somthing like this: [If you select the link, it eventually goes to our site but not from the original page. These links would be placed on lots of pages, but since they would all "pass through" the "redirect" page, it seems not as beneficial from an SEO perspective. Is this reasoning correct? Would google still follow the link and see where it ends up, even though it is via multiple pages? Ideally I'd prefer direct link but how much better is it than the redirect as listed above?](/redirect/rd?site=www.oursite.com/page&trackingparam=111111)
Link Building | | NicB10 -
Is the frontpage/deeplinking ratio of backlinks an important ranking factor?
Hi, i am asking me since a while, if the relation of the amount of frontpage backlinks divided through the amount of deeplinks pointing to a domain is an important ranking factor? In this area, i am not so much looking in the total numbers of backlinks, but more at the number of linking root domains. Do you have explore the ratio of frontpage/deeplinking as ranking factor reqarding the 100% of external backlinks? So for example, what do you consider better, asuming all root linking domains in theory are equal, for the SERP of the main keyword for which the frontpage is running on Google. Case A Frontpage = 80 Linking Domains
Link Building | | Braumueller
Subpages = 20 Linking Domains 80 / 20 = 4 / 1 (4 times more frontpage linking domains than deep linking domains to subpages) Case B Frontpage = 90 Linking Domains
Subpages = 10 Linking Domains 90 / 10 = 9 / 1 (9 times more frontpage linking domains than deep linking domains to subpages) Case C Frontpage = 95 Linking Domains
Subpages = 5 Linking Domains 95 / 5 = 19 / 1 (19 times more frontpage linking domains than deep linking domains to subpages) Greetings from Hamburg,
http://www.suchmaschinen-experte.de0 -
How to get a plain text instead of csv output for backlink analyzer?
The link analyzer looks really great, I'm using it now to do some reverse engineering and it is seemingly able to give me far more than just the 1k limit we can get from yahoo site. But it spits out the results to a csv file which just has everything bunched up into a bunch of gibberish. Is there a way to get a plain text file so its readable/usable? Or how to convert or view the csv file properly? Thanks
Link Building | | googlealchemist0