Do Internal Link Anchor Text Count Towards Overall Ratio?
-
I have a few pages that have dropped in rankings recently. I suspect it is because of the ratio of the anchor text. For example, you have 20 links pointing to page site.com/mens-jeans.html, and 15 have the anchor text "mens jeans".
If I am looking to dilute the exact match anchor text, will the internal links count?
Thanks
-
Internal anchor text would most likely not dilute your anchor text profile for good or bad. I believe a Google employee did confirm internal anchor text would not be penalized by Penguin...external sources pointing to your site with anchor text could though. So that paints a picture for you.
-
There are three factors regards:
- The anchor text
- The link
- The surround content
I believe (based on Google patents) that Link Anchor Text evaluation works as same as the old HyperLink used in help manuals. To add recent Google updates, and back to your question, the count will be the same, but a variety of anchor text, target links (e.g. site.com/mens-jeans.html?sort=pricelowtohigh,) and surround content will do better.
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
-
How would you link build to this page?
Hi Guys, I'm looking to build links to a commercial page similar to this: https://apolloblinds.com.au/venetian-blinds/ How would you even create quality links (not against Google TOS) to a commercial page like that? Any ideas would be very much appreciated. Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spyaccounts140 -
Low text-HTML ratios
Are low text-HTML ratios still a negative SEO ranking factor? Today I ran SEMRUSH site audit that showed 344 out of 345 pages on our website (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com) show an text-HTML ratio that ranges from 8% to 22%. This is characterized as a warning on SEMRUSH. This error did not exist in April when the last SEMRUSH audit was conducted. Is it worthwhile to try to externalize code in order to improve this ratio? Or to add text (major project on a site of this size)? These pages generally have 200-400 words of text. Certain URLs, for example www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/nycofficespaceforlease more text, yet it still shows an text-HTML ratio of only 16%. We recently upgraded to the WordPress 4.2.1. Could this have bloated the code (CSS etcetera) to the detriment of the text-HTML ratio? If Google has become accustomed to more complex code, is this a ratio that I can ignore. Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Internal links to preferential pages
Hi all, I have question about internal linking and canonical tags. I'm working on an ecommerce website which has migrated platform (shopify to magento) and the website design has been updated to a whole new look. Due to the switch to magento, the developers have managed to change the internal linking structure to product pages. The old set up was that category pages (on urls domain.com/collections/brand-name) for each brand would link to products via the following url format: domain.com/products/product-name . This product url was the preferential version that duplicate product pages generated by shopify would have their canonical tags pointing to. This set up was working fine. Now what's happened is that the category pages have been changed to link to products via dynamically generated urls based on the user journey. So products are now linked to via the following urls: domain.com/collection/brand-name/product-name . These new product pages have canonical tags pointing back to the original preferential urls (domain.com/products/product-name). But this means that the preferential URLs for products are now NOT linked to anywhere on the website apart from within canonical tags and within the website's sitemap. I'm correct in thinking that this definitely isn't a good thing, right? I've actually noticed Google starting to index the non-preferential versions of the product pages in addition to the preferential versions, so it looks like Google perhaps is ignoring the canonical tags as there are so many internal links pointing to non-preferential pages, and no on-site links to the actual preferential pages? I've recommended to the developers that they change this back to how it was, where the preferential product pages (domain.com/products/product-name) were linked to from collection pages. I just would like clarification from the Moz community that this is the right call to make? Since the migration to the new website & platform we've seen a decrease in search traffic, despite all redirects being set up. So I feel that technical issues like this can't be doing the website any favours at all. If anyone could help out and let me know if what I suggested is correct then that would be excellent. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Guy_OTS0 -
Correct Internal Linking Flow / Keyword Cannibalization
Hi, Would like some advice re our internal linking structure and possible keyword self cannibalization on our ecommerce site.. Will try and give you an overview. Imagine this page structure: Site
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs2010
Brand 1
Brand 2
Brand 2 Shoes
Products
Brand 2 Sweaters Then say in Brand 2 Shoes page we have the shoes, e.g., the products labeled as Brand 2 Shoes "Name of Model"
Brand 2 Shoes "Name of Model" Now, what I'm worried about is that if I do a search for "Brand 2 Shoes" it should bring up my landing page right? But it doesn't, it brings up some of the products instead... I'm worried that we may be self cannibalizing some of the keywords - and thinking of changing the product page to be "Brand Name of Model Shoes" or "Name of Model Shoes by Brand" Any ideas or comments appreciated! Thanks all0 -
Should I remove footer links?
I added footer links to my site some months ago as I figured that any authority my home page had would be distributed to several of my other most important pages on my site helping them to rank. Would I be better to remove them and would that improve the authority of my home page as less 'link juice' is being distributed. I did originally set up a page per keyword on my site and start building links to each one but as my home page has a good authority I am going to target several keywords on my home page instead as I have some way to go to improve the authority of my other important pages and think this would be a better solution. It would reduce the number of links I have per page however I did see Matt Cutts say that the no more than 100 links per page rule doesn't apply any more. Do footer links add any SEo value?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamCUK0 -
Solving Keyword Cannibalisation WITHOUT exact match internal links
Hi guys, I have an ecommerce client I'm working with (they are a tour operator). The client has multiple variations of very very similar tours which has created a keyword cannibalisation issue. I've read this blog from Rand on the issue, and I understand that I need to use internal links to show the bots which page I want to rank for which term. Problem is, I cant use exact match anchor text as it wouldn't adequately describe the tour from a user's perspective. eg I want a single page to rank for 'Los Angeles Tour' however, because the tour also takes in san francisco, I cant use the exact match anchor text 'Los Angeles Tour' because it doesn't give users a realistic indication of the page that they are going to. My solution... Is to use the internal linking structure eg 'San Francisco & Los Angeles Tour', This has the keyword phrase I want to optimise for within the anchor text. Does this have the same effect as using the exact match anchor text? I cant really see any other solution, so I'm guessing that s the right course of action Your thoughts would be much appreciated
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jamesjackson0 -
RSS feeds- What are the secrets to getting them, and the links inside then, indexed and counted for SEO purposes?
RSS feeds, at least on paper, should be a great way to build backlinks and boost rankings. They are also very seductive from a link-builder's point of view- free, easy to create, allows you to specifiy anchor text, etc. There are even several SEO articles, anda few products, extolling the virtues of RSS for SEO puposes. However, I hear anecdotedly that they are extremely ineffective in getting their internal links indexed. And my success rate has been abysmal- perhaps 15% have ever been indexed,and so far, I havenever seem Google show an RSS feed as a source for a backlink. I have even thrown some token backlinks against RSS feeds to see if that helped in getting them indexed, but even that has a very low success rate. I recently read a blog post saying that Google "hates aRSS feeds" and "rarely spiders perhaps the first link or two." Yet there are many SEO advocates who claim that RSS feeds are a great untapped resource for SEO. I am rather befuddled. Has anyone "crackedthe code" onhow to get them,and the links that they contain, indexed and helping rankings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tclendaniel0 -
Aside from creative link bait, what's a solid link building strategy involve?
All things considered, directories, blogs, articles, press releases, forums, social profiles, student discount pages, etc, what do you consider to be a strong, phased, link building strategy? I'm talking beyond natural/organic link bait, since many larger accounts will not allow you to add content to their website or take 6 months to approve a content strategy. I've got my own list, but would love to hear what the community considers to be a strong, structured, timeline-based strategy for link building.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stevewiideman1