Ranking via partial match
-
If I wanted to rank for "red hot widgets" and my domain was redhot.com, would it be better to obtain backlinks (via "red hot widgets" anchor text) pointing to:
A) redhot.com (homepage)
or
Many thanks.
-
I can't find the perfect quote right now, but I have often read articles were Eric Enge, Matt Cutts and others with a high degree of credibility talked about how unnatural anchor text patterns will likely lead to a (algorithmic) penalty.
Some example articles:
http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/anchor-text.shtml
http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts-061608.shtml
The premise is anchor links are supposed to be independent, and such links will vary naturally if not unduly influenced. When the identical anchor text is used past a certain threshhold, it is clear some extra influence is at work and the links will not have the same value. That influence can include such factors as a widget with specific code, links submitted to 100s of directories, republished articles, standard software created by links, etc.
A natural, independent link has more value then any form of influenced link, and Google does what it can to differentiate them and weight them accordingly.
-
Interesting about redhot.com/red-hot-widgets vs.redhot.com/widgets. So the latter will not be considered a closer match and no problem repeating the KWs red & hot?
Robert, regarding assumption 2, if I was trying to rank for hot dog onions and the domain was hotdog.com would the same still apply?
ie. Is hotdogs.com/hot-dog-onions better than hotdogs.com/onions -- hot dogs & hot dog onions being 2 different products?
-
Thanks for the advice guys.
-
Ryan,
the natural anchor text varies or naturally varying anchor text: Other than appearing unnatural or having readability issues, is there any evidence you have seen as to this having an effect on ranking, etc.? Just curious on this.
-
Based on your question being what you prefer to rank for KW: "red hot widgets" I would say a variant of B would be best. Assumption 1: Redhot is a descriptor of multiple items - widgets, gidgets, and midgets.
Assumption 2: Redhot.com was not a single product or service offering.
The variant I would use is redhot.com/red-hot-widgets; the reason being that I would have the partial KW in the domain and you would have an exact-match KW in the URL.
In a highly competitive widget market, you could go with widgets.redhot.com and grow the subdomain but you will need links, good anchor text and time. You would be growing widgets as its own domain, links, etc.
With a smaller site and the above assumptions, I would go with redhot.com/red-hot-widgets.com.
-
Ideally each page of your site should target one keyword or phrase. Presumably your home page will focus your brand name "Red Hot". Your redhot.com/widgets page will focus "red hot widgets". If this description is accurate for your site, then the backlinks for "red hot widgets" would best applied to your /widgets page.
Keep in mind, natural anchor text varies. It would not be a good idea to have all your links use the same anchor text as it would appear quite unnatural.
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
-
SERP Ranking Page Filp Flop Confusion
Hello all, I've been having some weird stuff going on between one of my landing pages and the Homepage. What's happening is, the page showing up in the SERP keeps flip-flopping, but not only that, when it flips to the landing page it will drop 70 positions. Then when it flips back to the homepage it goes back to around position 19. So confused about what is happening. I think the two pages are fighting for the same keyword as they both have the keyword in the meta title. Homepage >( <title>PresenterMedia - PowerPoint Templates, 3D Animations, and Clipart</title> ) Landing Page >( <title>PowerPoint Templates at PresenterMedia.com</title> ) I've seen other answers about the flip-flopping thing, but not sure about dropping 70 positions thing that is going on. Does this huge drop tell me the better page to rank is the homepage instead of the landing page this targeting this keyword? Any help would be greatly appreciated
Technical SEO | | JbonesPM0 -
Rankings Dropped to Nothing
We're kind of in crisis mode, as our ad revenue is about to take a huge hit. Hoping someone can help me figure out what to do next. Site: https://indoorgardening.com Here's what I did (below) that I think broke things somehow. I'm clearly not an SEO expert but thought I was making things better. And things did improve over the last week or so but then fell apart 2 days ago. 1. Most posts did not have a Yoast focus keyword. I added keyword phrases and used Yoast suggestions to optimize for that and for readability. 2. In some cases I changed post titles to better reflect the keyword phrase. 3. In some cases I changed the slug per Yoast's suggestion and did a 301 redirect from the old slug to the new one. 4. I used Grammarly to fix all spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. 5. Some Yoast-suggested changes that were made: Image alt tags, subheading structures, adding keyword to subheadings, first paragraph, and meta description, changed sentence length for those over 20 words to clean up the text, added transition words where applicable, reworded passive voice sentences, added internal links when needed, eliminated consecutive sentences (first word), improved Flesch reading ease when necessary. 6. I also added or changed Amazon affiliate links where needed and swapped out images when necessary. Results:
Technical SEO | | Jbyron
I started this project about 3 weeks ago. On 11/29 we had one of our highest traffic days, with 1017 hits coming from Google. On 11/30, 257 hits came from Google, and on 12/1, 3 (three!!) hits came from Google. At this point, 82 of 89 posts have a double green "Good" score in Yoast; 6 are "OK" and 1 does not have a focus keyword designated. Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide. -John0 -
Page Rank gone - technical difficulty?
Hi all, after coming back from the holidays, I noticed that our PR (6 on the homepage) has vanished into "Unranked". All other sites are also "unranked". I tested other domains - PR still there, so the problem does not lie in the PR checker. There are no drops in traffic, rankings, no messages in the GWMT, the same numer of indexed pages, inbound links okay (all natural)... As you see, I checked everything I thought could be a hint to a solution, but found nothing... This goes on for the 3rd day now (after my holidays, maybe even longer). Could there be a technical problem causing this "drop"? Our website: http://www.access.de/ I am thankful for all hints/suggestions... Thanx...
Technical SEO | | accessKellyOCG0 -
Sudden drop in rankings
Hi there, I've been working on this site for three or four months (it was a brand new site), and we were seeing some really great improvements in rankings. I've concentrated on writing lots of good quality content and building a network of links through blogging and social networks. Then, last weekend (6th October), we got completely wiped off of the results. We went from rankings 2,3 and 4 for our target terms to not being in the top 100. I assumed we'd been given a penalty from Google as we'd been SEOing too hard and removed a reciprocal links page we had and asked Google to reconsider. I just got a message back saying there hasn't been any manual penalty, so it's just down to the algorithm. I'm running am SEOMoz analysis, but so far it's just coming up with things like page titles too long and too many links on pages, which I can fix, but don't seem like something that would completely destroy us so abruptly. I think we really have the most and best content on the subject of becoming a model, which has taken a great deal of effort to put tgether, so this is crushing. If anybody can shed any light, I'll be extremely grateful, and I'd be interested to knwo if anyone else has experienced anything similar. Thanks in advance! URL: www.modellingadvice. info Kat
Technical SEO | | Katja1230 -
Does Google News Inclusion Affect Organic Rankings?
Hello SEO Gurus, Here's a question I've been unable to find an answer for: if you manage to get a publishing website or blog included in the Google News aggregate, can it negatively affect organic search visibility? I've never read anything that explicitly says so, but I have both read and experienced how e-commerce sites often have difficulty in ranking high for both organic and shopping searches. It seems that Google balances out visibility between the two. Has anyone had any experience with a website or blog that managed to rank high for the same high-value keyword on both organic search and news search? Thanks in advance! Mike
Technical SEO | | RCNOnlineMarketing0 -
Why is this site ranking so good?
Site in question: http://bit.ly/aBvVbm Our main competitor in the UK seems to be ranking extremely good for the keyword "jigsaw puzzles" even though their linking profile doesn't seem all that great? They mainly have site-wide links on 2 of their other ecommerce sites which seem to be given them their ranking power as this equals to 100's of links. Does sitewide links on 2 sites really give this much ranking power or am I missing something?
Technical SEO | | Tonyy30 -
Should I not Change the URL of Ranking Pages
My site currently ranks #1 or #2 for 2 separate pages on web design & SEO for my geographic location. The URLs are currently mysite.com/services/web-design/ and mysite.com/services/seo/ I'm redesigning my site and I'm taking out the "Services" page as I'm focusing on web design and SEO and lumping everything else into my "Internet Marketing" page. Because my pages for web design and SEO rank so well, should I keep the URL structure even though I don't have a "Services" page or should I just remove services and 301 redirect so I have mysite.com/web-design/ and mysite.com/seo/. I know doing a 301 redirect could hurt me in the short term but I'm wondering if I should just bite the bullet now and change it in favor of a better URL structure. What do you think?
Technical SEO | | JaredDetroit0 -
Exact match domains
I know buying new websites hoping to 301 redirect them to achieve higher rankings before they’re established is not a good idea, but what about uploading a info pages + on-page SEO + some link-building and when the site is established (it ranks) direct visitors to a landing page? Buying a new domain for the SINGLE purpose of 301 redirecting won’t boost the rankings (don't think it would get penalties either, unless it’s the only link building activity). Not planning to redirect to the homepage, but to the related sub page on our main site (specific landing page). Will this pass the appropriate anchor text and link authority to the right page on our website and help those pages to rank for their keywords? Only thinking of a few pages (no more than 3).
Technical SEO | | Diana.varbanescu0