Does Anchor Text in Links Count When Google Looks at Overall Keywords on the Page?
-
So, on our site, we have a list of related blog posts on a page that focuses on bamboo flooring.
These blogs posts have anchor text like "What's the best bamboo flooring?" "How to install bamboo flooring." "Yada yada bamboo flooring yada."
Because the main keyword for the page is bamboo flooring, would the presence of these words within anchor text on the page be considered as keywords on the bamboo flooring page, affecting that page and possibly stuffing within that page?
-
Awesome. That's a fantastic way to check. Thank you.
-
Here is a quick experiment you can run. Find a page that has the related links on it. Let's say it is...
http://domain.com/bamboo-flooring
Go to google and type in...
site:domain.com/bamboo-flooring "how to install bamboo flooring"
Does Google show the page or not? If they do, then you know Google is counting the anchor text towards the rankings of that page.
-
Anchor text and other link-related text will definitely count toward keywords and overall in content, as it's an item on the page. As to whether or not these would push your page toward being seen as stuffed, depends wholly on three things:
- Is the rest of your content heavy with that keyword?
- Do the pages to which they link have content that isn't absolutely related to the topic suggested in the anchor text?
- Are there a lot of links with anchor text like this?
If the answer to any of these questions is "yes", then you may want to reconsider things a touch. The short answer is, yes, the anchor text for links is counted as part of the content of a page, and therefore will effect all aspects to which content can be hinged.
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
-
Does Google do keyword matching when deciding whether to rank a page?
Hi, another newbie question on keyword research and selection (can't find any information on-line with this low level of detail)... If I've decided that my primary keyword for a given product page is the product name, something like 'AquaPower wet and dry cordless vacuum cleaner', can I assume that it isn't worth additionally optimising the page for 'cordless vacuum' as this has a phrase match in the primary keyword? Is it still worth additionally optimising for 'wet and dray vacuum' which has a broad match within the primary keyword or is Google bright enough to drop the intervening word 'cordless' when deciding whether to rank my page? Thanks for any guidance on this.
Keyword Research | | Alli70 -
Keywords moving up, except...
The keywords on my page are moving up, except for one. I have routinely ranked between 13-15 for one particular keyword. I am aware that it is a broad term, however, at one point, I showed up on page one at #6, and then dropped right back down to where I was. The website it "sexaddict.com" and, don't worry, it's for addicts so you won't find anything but help and resources there. The keyword is "sex addiction." Thanks, Ryan
Keyword Research | | drdougweiss0 -
Keyword tracking for all keywords that contain a specific keyword
Hello, Is it possible to see keyword performance for all keywords that contain a specific phrase? Then see which landing page each keyword is most likely associated to? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | STP_SEO0 -
How to optimize home page for several keywords
My issue is this. I'm getting a lot of "F" grades for certain keywords to my homepage using MOZ. the thing is I can't add to many keywords to title tag without going over 65 characters. It seems the title tag is most important and even though i have keywords in content and everything else, without title tag keyword its useless. can creating more than one title tag help or will that make things worse with search engines?
Keyword Research | | DrMcCoy0 -
Google Keyword Research Tool - Monthly Totals for Similar Keywords?
Hi! I am doing some Google keyword research using the Google Adwords Keyword tool to decide what content to create for the masses. That is, to find opportunities to create content that is in-demand where the current offering is not satisfying the need effectively. Here are some keywords I picked out. I hope to produce a single piece of content optimized for some or all of these keywords. (See attached imgur link) The first thing I notice when doing this kind of work is that many similar-sounding keywords are showing the same sum of average monthly totals. This suggests to me that they may not actually be unique. For instance, the first two searches "guitar strings order" and "guitar string notes" each have ~5400 monthly searches. Does that mean 5400 each, or 5400 total between the two? So does anybody know if these are individual numbers or part of a bigger total? And if they are part of a bigger total, how could I estimate the average searches for a piece of content that targets all 8 keywords? If I tally all of the searches, I have over 23,000 potential searches per month. But if some of them are being counted more than once, so to speak, then the number could be much lower. ghmFYOZ
Keyword Research | | garney0 -
Best Practices For Keyword Optimization
Hey currently building a new page on a clients site in the weight loss niche. The keywords he wants to rank for are the following: <colgroup><col width="198"> <col width="64"></colgroup>
Keyword Research | | monster99
| [fat burning foods] | 49500 |
| [foods that burn fat] | 22200 |
| [fat burning foods for women] | 2900 |
| [belly fat burning foods] | 2900 |
| [best fat burning foods] | 1900 |
| [fat burning foods for men] | 1900 |
| [list of fat burning foods] | 720 | His site is new, but he has excellent content production capabilities. My question is, in terms of optimizing the page (the title and url) for these keywords would you focus on the highest volume keyword. In this case the highest volume keyword is "fat burning foods" however is the most competitive and dominated by high domain authority sites (50+ vs. clients site which is around 30). Thus its highly unlikely he will rank for that keyword for quite a while. But for the keyword term "best fat burning foods" the competition is alot less in terms of DA and other factors but volume is smaller with 1900 hits a month. So would you optimize the page (the title and url) for "best fat burning food" or would you optimize thinking about the long-term and eventually ranking the keyword "fat burning foods". My thinking would be to optimize the page for "fat burning foods". And that the benefits of optimizing (url and title) for "best fat burning foods" isn't ideal for the long-run. Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. Cheers, Mark0 -
Why does google's autocomplete not align with google's keyword tool?
Is google autocomplete based solely off keyword search volume? Or is there some other factors i am missing here? Here's an example: Auto complete suggestions for 'storage toronto': [storage toronto cost] [storage toronto downtown] [storage toronto rates] [storage toronto leaside] [storage toronto prices] [storage toronto dupont] [storage toronto laird] [storage toronto eastern ave] [storage toronto ontario] Google adwords keyword tool results for these: <colgroup><col width="151"> <col width="129"> <col width="169"></colgroup>
Keyword Research | | adriandg
| Keyword | Global Monthly Searches | Local Monthly Searches |
| [storage toronto cost] | 0 | 0 |
| [storage toronto downtown] | 36 | 28 |
| [storage toronto rates] | 0 | 0 |
| [storage toronto leaside] | 0 | 0 |
| [storage toronto prices] | 73 | 73 |
| [storage toronto dupont] | 0 | 0 |
| [storage toronto laird] | 0 | 0 |
| [storage toronto eastern ave] | 0 | 0 |
| [storage toronto ontario] | 0 | 0 | So here is what i find confusing: If [storage toronto cost] is the top suggestion for [storage toronto...] then why does google say it has 0 monthly searches? Why isn't [storage toronto downtown] the first suggestion? or better yet, why isn't [storage toronto prices] the top suggestion? So either: 1) google adwords keyword tool is wrong. or 2) google suggest isn't based on just volume?? I've run these same keywords through Bing's Excel keyword information spreadsheet query and it came back saying all keywords had 0 searches ever, except for...drumroll: [storage toronto prices] with 7 monthly searches, once, in august, and 0 all other months. Now i assume that bing/yahoo numbers are significantly smaller, but this does show that that the same keyword is the most popular, so in some way suggests that google's keyword is accurate. So i guess this brings be back to my confusion, what other factors is google's suggest based on, because it obviously isn't primarily search volume. And yes, i have made sure to clear caches, and disable personalized search and search history, and tried the query in several browsers, just to double check i wasn't getting a personalized list, so we can rule that out. Thanks, Storwell.0 -
Keyword cannibalization in ecommerce sites
I'm assuming this is a common problem in ecommerce sites. Lets say we have a "sleeping bags" which has all types of sleeping bags on it. Then build a brand page "The North Face" with a subpage for The North Face sleeping bags. Is it possible to target the sleeping bags page for "sleeping bags" while targeting the branded sleeping bag page for "The North Face sleeping bag"? how would you suggest doing this while avoiding keyword cannibalization?
Keyword Research | | Hakkasan0
