Links
-
Hi, im wondering if links that is not exact anchor links gives any boost for rankings?
Example if lets say somebody links to my site http://domain.com/category/article with anchor: domainname or url link.
-
Hey Paddy,
Great summary man!
Your 1,2, 3 = There are lots of other signals as well which Google can look at besides anchor text.
Overall site health is essential
All the best,
Tom
-
Hi Rob,
There are some great answers in this thread, so I won't repeat too much. But just a few additional points:
- Ultimately, the quality of the site should be an important factor for you to consider. If the site is high quality, then it's likely to help you in terms of traffic and rankings no matter what the anchor text is.
- Anchor text still plays a big part in rankings. But as others have said, it can be risky to have too much anchor text which doesn't look natural i.e. is stuffed full of keywords. So you do need to be careful not to look manipulative and I'd advise not taking risks and focusing on the quality of the link as noted above.
- There are lots of other signals as well which Google can look at besides anchor text. A few may be - the position of the link on the page, the surrounding text, whether the link is in a list or not, whether the link is followed or not.. countless things which can help Google decide if a link is good or not.
I hope that helps!
Paddy
-
Just in case all these excellent answers are not compounding enough I want to let you know I concur with everyone.
Today you want to be careful of using anchor text. I'm not going to lie and tell you that it is a more potent however the best way to do it is naturally most people will not give you incredible anchor text when linking to you if it's done naturally.
It's fine to get a lot of "click here" check out the site" for site's name or the URL. Also, Google is not stupid they have an excellent idea of rather not it's a little bit over optimized and may be a buddy helped hypothetically let's say you sell tennis shoes For clay courts. "Clay-court tennis shoes" looks like it would fine only If rarely done and people will do that on their own so don't do it yourself.
Backlinks and anchor text are still a way to get you removed from the SERPS by Google, but if it is over optimized, it's so easy to tell that you have manipulated the links.
Put it this way Google looks at every link with its AI machine learning algorithm it knows what normal is and what normal is not. You will always get some very optimized URLs and its natural.
One rule I have with Google if you think it's possibly going to be an issue then stay away from it or do what you did here and got good information.
** excellent references on Natural Anchor Text vs Unnatural Anchor Text**
- https://www.semrush.com/blog/8-signs-that-indicate-youre-over-optimizing-your-blog/
- https://moz.com/blog/anchor-text-distribution-avoiding-over-optimization
- http://www.wordstream.com/anchor-text
- https://blog.kissmetrics.com/avoid-over-optimizing/
- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en
What you have to deal with if you do not pay attention to what Google tells you to do.
Tools For checking your back links.
- https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/
- https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en
- https://ahrefs.com/
- https://majestic.com
Tools for checking your external links on your site:
- https://moz.com/researchtools/crawl-test
- https://www.deepcrawl.com/index-of-reports/
- https://analytics.moz.com/manage-campaigns
- https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
** I hope that this helps and you have avoided some issues with Google.**
** All the best,**
** Tom **
-
Hi Rob.
Long story, short? Yes, they do impact possitevely in your SERPS.
I agree with Bas.
My personal advise: mantein the diversity in every aspect. Google is able to find out whether you are trying to manipulate the SERPs. And ALWAYS, think the linkbuilding strategy as making it look natural and organic.Hope it helps.
GR. -
Well: like i said: it's better to have 'natural anchors'. So, yes, you can score with a different anchor text.
Say for example: you wouldn't tell anyone to which page they would have to link to and what anchor or IF they need to use an anchor text. In this case: the inlinks and anchor texts would probably be very 'natural'. Meaning: all different.
In that you will very probably gain DA or PA with these inlinks.
It's not only the anchor text, or the source URL, or the relevancy of the content of the linking domain to your domain: it's all these and much more combined. The anchor text is only a part of the complete 'calculation'.
To come back to your question if such a link will give you a boost: there is a high probability that it will, no matter what the anchor text is. Since the site that is linking to you is about a similar topic, i would expect a positive effect. Whether you can measure the effect or not depends on a lot of other elements that we (in this forum) don't know.
Of course: a link with an anchor text containing the keyword that you chose to the page you've chosen would be perfect. But that doesn't mean all other combinations are useless. Maybe less effective towards to your personal or business goal. That might be the case.
Does this help you?
Bas -
Thanks for the answer, i understand that. But i wonder if it will give any boost in rankings if lets say somebody links to me from his blog that is about fruits and the article is about apples. The anchor text is my domain name or my URL and it links to my site with this url: http://domain.com/fruit/apple.
Will it give any boost at all or is it only when the right anchor is used?
-
Hi: best to have natural anchor texts. Rand said in one of the Whiteboard Friday videos that it's better to not have all anchor texts the same. That's not natural. Have some variation in anchor texts.
As long as the anchor texts resemble the content and your chosen keyword(s), the anchor text will still push you in the right direction.
Hope that helps.
Bas
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
-
Link Exchange
Is link exchange always bad? What if I want to add a link for other related products on my site which I do not offer, and the other site does the same for me? Will it be better to rather an article for each other product and link to somebody, than have one page with a list of other products to other sites. For example. We do training. Lets say we offer computer training. We search companies that does health and safety training offer to put their course on our site with a link to them, if they do the same.
Link Building | | Heinwest0 -
Page links, header links, footer links
HI I have been hearing about links, you should keep to 100 Just look at this url http://www.powerwale.com/store/acdelco-sealed-vrla-iacdv5l--b-5ah-bike-battery/77031 and go for Recommend section, where you same product applies to different vehicles 1. im confused, should keep it or not?
Link Building | | Rahim119
2. Header links are less, Footer links are less, and in the future, we are planning to add more, will this affect SEO more than 100
i see many ecommerce sites, has menu showing many categories, more 100 categories links
3. Wht about link equity? If I have more links in header and footer page(all this will follow in the rest of pages).
4. More links in the header and footer shows that you are big ecommerce site.. Pls suggest, which is right way and go gain SEO value1 -
Gathering links
There are numerous "Ultimate Guides" to linkbuilding, outreach, etc., and they are all written to teach you the art of linkbuilding. The only thing these guides don't tell you is that following them takes a massive amount of time and doesn't guarantee to get good links at all. We're all in online marketing, and maybe we online marketeers are familiar with linking to other websites, posts that we like, etc. and maybe that's why we can write these guides but in other niches it really doesn't work that way 🙂 I'm wondering what techniques/tactics/strategies you guys are using in less straightforward niches to get quality links to your blogposts. To give you an idea, we launched an article a couple of weeks ago targeting a very competitive keyword. The article got shared over 100 times on LinkedIn/Twitter/etc. and already ranking pretty good, but REAL backlinks are still missing. How to get people to link to that article?
Link Building | | jorisbrabants0 -
Link quality
Hi, Having read dozens of your blogs and found them highly informative, i have to ask a question. I am kicking oout our SEO company and have taken over the SEO myself with some excellent results. Our SEO providers tell me that links from any site (irrelevent of their DA) are good, providing they are comming from a relevant source. We are in the security industry and according to MOZ, we have a DA of 52. If i can get a link to our site from another company in our industry but they have a DA of 10, is this really beneficial for me? Info i have read in Moz blogs suggest it is n ot a good idea. Please help. many thanks Daddy Smurf
Link Building | | DaddySmurf0 -
What are the pros and cons of using a link builder? Can link building be outsourced?
Hi, I have great content on my website which I would like to build external links to from other websites. I am told this will increase my domain authority and ultimately help search engine ranking positions. I have very limited time in my hands and now thinking of outsourcing the link building component to a specialist. Is this a good way of doing it? Could you recommend professional link builders?
Link Building | | Saunders18650 -
Resource linking
Is a resource linking page a good way to build backlinks? Do I need to ask permission of the site I am linking? & If do build a resource page do I have to keep in mind keyword density rule, not to stuff too many links on page? I see one of my competitors using a "resource page" and linking to some high athority sites, (which I know they have not asked permission) b/c they are big name site, NFL, NHL, ESPN etc. Any suggestions much appreciated! Thank you!!!
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Advetorial links
How do you scientifically value advertorial links. I have a site who is willing to buy advertorial in large online sites which will contain links. (I would prefer they invested in content on their own site). The DA on these sites is universally extremely strong. the PA of the examples I've seen is pretty low. The site has strong DA matching it's main competition and is performing pretty well in terms of ranking. Question: how do you value this kind of link in terms of the amount of £ the publications want to charge. Anybody have a formula or a logical process which would provide solid advice rather than don't infringe Google's T&C's which I've already mentioned to them. Any thoughts appreciated.
Link Building | | Shivvyt0 -
Completely lost in linking.
Hi Guys, Really new to SEO, but i'd like to think learning quickly. The question: I really want to build up the linking profile for our website but I don't really know how to go about it. We have many good relationships within the industry and i'm sure I could obtain some reciprocal links. The things is - where do I display the links on our website? I could create a 'hidden' page for purely links, but is this a bad practice and frowned upon? Also is this the best way to obtain good, authoritative links? I am assuming that linking to people with a root authority of 30/40+ would be beneficial. Or am I just plain wrong/out of my depth?! Honestly any help at all would be so appreciated.
Link Building | | Revolution_Inc0