Naked link anchors or long tail anchors ?
-
Hi,
Do naked link anchors such as "www.mysite.com/my-category" have the same SEO power as long tails anchors? What about the UX which such anchors?
Lately a site published our back-to-school article with this horrible naked link anchor, it does not look friendly to me as a reader, but I am wondering whether I should bother, how important it is for google and for readers?
Thank you in advance.
Isabelle
-
I see the other great responses to your question but wanted to provide some more info as well!
Whether you’re familiar with anchor text or not, if you’ve spent any time on the Internet, you’ve seen it a million times. Anchor text is the keyword or keyword phrase that serves as the link to another web page or web site. Anchor text is typically highlighted like this: anchor text (if you click this example, another window will open up that contains our other blog http://bluecorona.wordpress.com).
Anchor text is important because it gives web site visitors (and search engines) a hint about the web page or web site they are about to visit (if they click the link). This is why you DON’T want to use common calls to action like, “click here” or “our website.” Instead, you want to use keyword rich anchor text. If you’re having a contest to give away a free website makeover for the HVAC industry, make free HVAC website the anchor text! If thousands of web sites link to your site using the anchor text ‘leading residential furnace installers‘ there’s a good chance that you’re in the residential HVAC business and you install furnaces!
-
Put it this way, it sounds clear and obvious, thank you !
-
Thanks VIjay, everythings clear !
-
It is absolutely natural for people to link to your website with your URL. When looking at your backlink profile, you should see tons of links with the anchor text being things like your naked url or "website" or "this". In fact, it would be incredibly unnatural, and potentially a sign of paid linking schemes, if every single link to your website was a keyword rich, long tail anchor.
-
Hi Isabelle,
The links anchor needs to be contextual at all times or to the best extent possible.
What is an Ideal natural looking link?
- An ideal link brings targeted traffic related to page/website it links (target traffic ensures fewer bounce rates, which help further for SEO)
How can SEO and traffic benefit from a natural link ?
- You have to use the right Anchor text, which is in the right context with the target URL.
- Natural linking and getting good traffic combined is the best thing to happen in SEO.
As for whether you should use Long-tail or naked link anchors, it totally depends on the context in which the backlink is being created.
For example, I would use naked anchor text when building brand authority (for the website URL) and Anchor text when I wish to target specific keywords.
I hope this helps, let me know if you have further questions, I will be happy to answer them.
Best Regards,
Vijay
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
-
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 -
Reciprocal links
I've heard that reciprocal links don't count anymore. If i stop linking to a person that links to me, will that link to my website start counting? Do reciprocal links count at all in google? Anchor text? anything? Thanks in advance! Ron
Link Building | | Ron100 -
How long does a new article or link take to show up in opensiteexplorer?
I have recentely submitted an article with a couple of links back to my site and although the article directory has included this in their site (after around 7 days, for approval purposes) it doesnt show up in opensiteexplorer. How long do new links take to show up in opensiteexplorer? on average??
Link Building | | Deanknight0 -
Removed Link
After I have removed a link, how long does it take for it to be reflected in Google WMT?
Link Building | | raph39880 -
Links I am not Building?
Hi All, I check webmaster multiple times on a daily basis, and I noticed some links that I have not worked on and look a bit spammy, is it possible for people to purposely pont bad links in my direction? If that is the case is there a way for me to remove them myself? Also the number of total backlinks are very different in Webmaster and my Open Site Explorer, is this normal? Thanks again !
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Too Many Links???
SEOMOZ is telling me I have more than 100 links on quite a few of my pages, and I cant seem to find out what links they are finding. Like for instance on this page http://standupguys.biz/what-we-haul/commercial-junk-removal-services/computer-removal-recycling/ It is telling me that I have 117 hyper links (which is WAY too high). Can anyone explain to me where these are coming from, and how I can avoid this?? Please and thank you.
Link Building | | Caseman0 -
Link Directories
Hi there, We're very shortly launching a new website so as part of our link strategy we will be linking to directories found with the Link Acquisition Assistant for various keyword searches. I was wondering at what point is it not worthwhile submitting to these directories with regards PA and DA? For example if a directory has a domain authority of 69 but the page authority for the keyword in question is only 1, would it be a waste of time? Cheers
Link Building | | TalarMade0 -
Where to link?
Hi I need to gert this page up in the rankings http://www.kerryblu.co.uk/wedding-headbands-70-c.asp but am getting no where fast. When applying for links should I direct them to this page or to the homepage, and let them filter through. Thanks
Link Building | | Yorkie0