Anchor text... How hard should one try?
-
I'm looking at a lot of competitor's sites, and they only seem to have gone after root domain anchor text in their link-building campaigns. Since I am just launching and am essentially a one-man band (with some hired help), is it worth my while to attempt to optimize individual keywords or pages at this point, or should I just do as they have done, and try to get domain-name links wherever I can?
For that matter, should I spend more time going for the low-hanging fruit of followed blog comments, forum posts etc, or emailing influencers to try and get editorial links?
Sorry if that last one is a bit broad, and thanks very much in advance for any and all help.
-
OK. So My takeaway from this is that it's probably best (since it's so much easier) to go mostly for brand-related anchor text, other perhaps than in cases where I'm really trying to make a push on a particular page? If that's correct, then my last question is: Are brand anchor text links to a particular page thought to be weighted considerably less by Google than page title anchor text for that particular page?
-
too many people assume that Google penalizes a site for same-word anchor text as a single criteria. They don't penalize for brand related phrases as much as for non-brand keyword over-use, because it's "natural" that a site or company would be referred to by it's brand name by most people. It's much less likely that a site or company would be referred to by an over-abundance of a non-brand phrase, unless that company was so well known by that phrase or those phrases as to be unique enough that those phrases were synonymous with that brand. The overwhelming majority of sites and companies in existence do not enjoy such a luxury.
-
This seems to make a lot of sense, but then I look at the link profile with OSE of a site like Askmen - in the top 500 of the most-trafficked sites in the U.S - and over 95% of their 10,000 or so backlinks are brand name... There are very few that appear to be targeting specific keywords at all. I know one counterexample isn't much, but this was literally the first site of that size that I looked at. If Google had changed its criteria to those you suggest, could one not expect a site like this to be massively penalized?
-
To add to Banar's recommendation, I'll offer that Google has been focused more on quality of trust signals in the past year and change than ever - a big part of that is "how natural does the link profile look?" Too much emphasis on brand only, or only one or two phrases across all or even most of your anchor text is an unnatural pattern. So too is obtaining links purely or mostly from the "low hanging fruit" you describe. You need variety of anchor text, variety of pages links point to, and variety of sources links come from.
-
Hi Zachary,
DO NOT ever target one page only. If you are really very very busy, please, optimize at least couple of pages. There has to be a diversity in links as well as anchor text. Of course, you will concentrate a little more at home page and main keywords but please remember about link and anchor text diversity.
As of the low-hanging fruit - absolutely NO. It's much better to build 10 good links than 1,000 spammy links. Google is smarter than this. Trust me, Google's thousands of engineers are working every day to improve search algorithm. You don't want to take that chance and compete with them.
Good luck & see you at the top
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
-
Odd one - dropping positions but traffic improving
Seem to have a bit of an odd one. For the last few months been running a backlink campaign for a 2/3 year old site, got good positions for some keywords/pages but seems to have plateaued the last 60 days or so with some keywords dropping in position.
Link Building | | seoman10
The odd thing is traffic seems to be still improving (according to GA and GSC). I am wondering if - have hit a niche ceiling
or rankbrain type thing i.e. google trying to work out what the site should be ranking for and messing with positions.
or because it is just a newish site. Any ideas?2 -
Anchor text or inbound link keyword limits
With google's new algorithm, websites can get punished for keyword stuffing or too many of certain back links...so my question is, is there a limit on the keyword/anchortext used for a website containing a keyword you want the website to rank with?
Link Building | | SeobyKP0 -
Hi. One of our competitors is ranking ahead of us on Google. Our site has a much stronger authority and much more quality links than this competitor. Would anyone have any explanations for this? Thanks
Hi Guys - I've noticed recently that one of our competitors is ranking extremely well on Google, while we seem to be fluctuating, along with other competitors, for our main keywords. Our site has a much stronger authority and much more quality links than this competitor and traffic is continuously increasing each month. Would anyone have any explanations as to why we may be seeing this? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Link Building | | barryhq0 -
'Powered by...' anchor text links
Hi Mozzers! We're a web design and dev agency in Kent, UK who don't really provide SEO services (tend to outsource and focus on our core competencies!) Have never really bothered putting 'Powered by...' or 'built by...' anchor text links at the foot of our client sites that link back to ours. Obvs we have a huge back catalogue of opportunities to add this to various sites which, if clients agree of course, would push our backlinks above our key competitors overnight (according to OSE). Good idea or Spammy/back hattie??? Cheers guys.
Link Building | | mjs_adr0 -
Around 10% of our backlink profile is made up of branded links from one Japanese site, do we disavow?
We have recently changed domain names and all the links are going to the old domain. We are wondering whether we should disavow them all as they are the majority of our backlink profile at the moment.
Link Building | | cttgroup0 -
Should we Have Our Anchor Text Changed?
Unfortunately, we used a SEO company to do some link building for us and they used a lot of marketed keywords as anchor text instead of branded. About a month into the project, we saw a drop in ranking for those keywords. From what I've read, Google is cracking down on marketed keywords in anchor text (when it is done in a spammy looking way). I have contacted the company that did the work and they said they could update the anchor text. So my questions are: Should we asked them to change the anchor text to branded keywords or should we just leave them? 2) If we do have them changed, do you think Google will look at that as another spammy move? Any input would be great. Lesson learned not to used a reputable SEO company and for us not to monitor how they were submitting links. Ron
Link Building | | dustyabe0 -
One Website or Mini Sites?
Hello and thank you in advance for your responses. My wife and I have been running a small service business for over 5 years and we recently came upon an untapped niche in our industry we will like to explore. We have found some niche keyword specific domains and have been contemplating building a few specific minisites linking to our main site(blog) in order to reach a more targeted audience. It seems the more I research this concept the more confused I guess. My questions are the following: 1. Should we create a main blog, for example: "BestHotelConferences.com" and have some (about 10) independent optimized sites "HiltonConferences.com," "MarriottConferences.com," linking to our main blog or should we optimize these pages within our main blog? 2. If we choose to create this minisite buildout concept and these domains yield the following monthly search results which one should we pick? HiltonConference.com - 3900 HiltonConference**s.**com - 1700 HiltonHotelConference - 730 HiltonHotelConferences - 580 I have heard that the plurals already include the singular version however they will not be an exact match. Also if we add the word hotelwe will be targeting a broader audience since "hilton conference" will still be included in the domain name, but once again it will not be an exact match. Please help! Which domain name should we pick?
Link Building | | Laz1010 -
Anybody tried the content syndication network SYNND?
I know, I know, you should really create great content that attracts great links, but if you're looking to outsource, what do you think about an outfit like SYNND http://synnd.com/ ? I'm worried that it may be shady or that the links will end up leaving a footprint and that the links will not help promote the content and only end up hurting rankings. Any thoughts? Are there any good paid link building services? Not sure who to trust. Thanks!
Link Building | | akim261