Question regarding back link analysis and anchor text
-
Hello,
I am looking at my competitors back link analysis and comparing a range of link based metrics from the top 10 SERPS. I am then putting this data into excel and comparing our back link profiles.
When looking at the anchor text distribution i am not sure whether to look at exact match anchor or phrase match anchor. For example, one of the companies I am looking at holds positions 3 and 4 in the SERPS. Looking at their linking profile I can see that only 1.7% of their links use the exact match anchor 'widget'.
Looking at their phrase match anchor is an entirely different story, 93.5% of anchor links contain 'widget' somewhere. i.e. 'cheap widgets', 'widget sale', 'buy widgets at www.examplewidget.co.uk' etc.
Obviously their exact match and phrase match anchor distribution tell a completely different story. THIS IS TRUE FOR MANY OF THE TOP 10 SERPS. Therefore, should I be looking at phrase match anchors instead of exact?
Side note: would people recommend targeting anchors with 'brandname widget' based on predictions of Google giving weighted anchor more weight.
Robert.
-
As with the panel, I would look at phrase also. Exact is too narrow, and you never want to get all your anchor as exact anyway as this looks a bit manipulated.
Put those broad phrases into Google's keyword tools and see where the most hits comes from and move forward from there.
-
Observe your natural link profile and you will notice people don't always choose to use exact match anchor text - in fact that's pretty rare when it happens. Google knows this and if you stick to an exact match you will create a suspicious backlink profile which would bite you back later on. My recommendation is to diversify anchor text and mix it with brand and variation of the phrase.
Example:
exact match
brand exact match
exact match brand
partial match
exact match: www. url. cometc.
-
You shuld try to match phrase.
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 juice from links that are not on the page?
Hello, Thank you in advance for your help! I was doing research for backlinking opportunities by looking at competitor backlinks using Open Site Explorer and I ran into a puzzle. When I do an Open Site Explorer search for http://whatsdavedoing.com/ I find that link equity is being passed to the site from a number of pages on the http://www.travelsupermarket.com/ blog with the anchor text "What's Dave Doing" When I go to these pages and do a source code search I cannot find this anchor text. When I do a google search with the following: site:travelsupermarket.com "What's Dave Doing" I find that there are tons of items that come back with a list of blogs in their description: "Dec 5, 2013 - ... foXnoMad · Inside The Travel Lab · itravelnet · The Mad Traveler Blog · The Mad Traveler Online · Uncornered Market · What's Dave Doing?" Where is this coming from? What is going on here? Is this a linking tactic that sites use to pass link juice to contributors without linking to them directly? Any help is much appreciated! Thanks!
Competitive Research | | overlandundersea0 -
Absolute vs Relative URL Interlinking Observation & Question
So I've read a few articles about this here on SEOMOZ and other sites. I understand the benefit of relative url linking from a developer's point view. I've also read that using either internal linking methods doesn't really have any real SEO benefits or cons that would impact your rankings greatly. (Except with the slight chance of getting traffic and backlinks from a scraper site.) But I'm seeing examples where this may not be true. I did a search for 5 star hotels in Vegas in google. Some of the top results were Hotels.com and Expedia.com Priceline.com was on the second page. I used the search operator link: to Hotels.com, Expedia.com and Priceline.com vegas hotel pages respectively: Hotels.com: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&site=webhp&q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.hotels.com%2Fde1504033-st5%2Ffive-star-hotels-las-vegas-nevada%2F&oq=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.hotels.com%2Fde1504033-st5%2Ffive-star-hotels-las-vegas-nevada%2F&gs_l=serp.3...3650.7043.0.7972.8.7.1.0.0.0.90.363.7.7.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1j2.4kALxt0jpxI Expedia.com: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&site=webhp&q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.expedia.com%2F5Star-Las-Vegas-Hotels.s50-0-d178276.Travel-Guide-Filter-Hotels&oq=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.expedia.com%2F5Star-Las-Vegas-Hotels.s50-0-d178276.Travel-Guide-Filter-Hotels&gs_l=serp.3...1681.3746.0.4076.6.6.0.0.0.0.100.348.5j1.6.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1j2.KxqwbH-YFV0 Priceline: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&site=webhp&q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.priceline.com%2F5-star-hotels-las-vegas-nevada-NV-filter-tk-s5-c291680-hl.hotel-reviews-hotel-guides&oq=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.priceline.com%2F5-star-hotels-las-vegas-nevada-NV-filter-tk-s5-c291680-hl.hotel-reviews-hotel-guides&gs_l=serp.3...11265.12321.0.12767.5.5.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.HYtfct4MS7M The results were that priceline had no backlinks internally or externally to their vegas page. Whereas their competitors did, most of which were from their own internal pages. Looking at priceline's linking structure and architecture, they use a relative url structure and sessions ids to link to various pages. Their competitors don't. Wouldn't you argue that this may be adversely affecting their rankings. I know other things are to be factored in if you dig deeper. But that seems to be a major difference. It just seems that their content management system or how their site is coded isn't really passing link juice.
Competitive Research | | workathomecareers0 -
Manta inbound link in OSE - competitor site yes, my site no, why?
Our site has had a link back to our site from Manta for a long time, but it's not appearing in our OSE results. One of our competitors similarly has an inbound link from Manta and that link DOES appear in their OSE results. I'm not certain whether that matters for us. Does it? But in any event, why would the one link appear but not the other? Thanks! Tim
Competitive Research | | tcolling0 -
My Competition is using some Strange Achord Text and Inbound Links
I was doing some research and a lot of my competition are websites from Universities, but I got surprised when I saw that a lot of their Anchor Text where things like Buy Viagra , Play poker , Buy Cialis , a lot of their inbound links where about things like that , one of the sites I was doing research on was www.imba.ie.edu , this site was #1 for the keyword I want that is related to education. Also other sites on the #1 page of google for this keyword (universities websites) had the same kind of inbound links and achord texts. Whats going on here??
Competitive Research | | globalcampus0 -
What is a Competitive Domain Analysis In Laimens Terms?
Hello all, I know what a Competitive Domain Analysis is, essentially, as a Developer, aspiring SEO master like Danny Dover, or Rand; LOL, I wish, those dudes a serious geniuses! I was looking for the Trifecta Tool, in SEOmoz, tools, but it seems to be gone??? So it looks like I will be using the "Competitive Domain Analysis", to assist my sales pitch. My Question is how would you explain it to a Client, or my Head Sales guy, for a pitch to a prospective career making client. Many thanks to your thoughts.
Competitive Research | | smstv0 -
Question about Bold/Strong and $$ amounts
I've just downloaded the Moz toolbar for chrome and noticed that some website I'm visting have a dollar figure range next to the Bold/Strong section. What exactly is this? If you go to http://www.tincup.com and use to the toolbar you'll see what I mean. Thanks, JMM
Competitive Research | | blogging4jobs0 -
List of all outbound links to a specified site
For example, I want to search for every link to my site from stumbleupon. Is there a way to do this? Much thanks in advance!
Competitive Research | | TrevorMcKendrick0 -
What is the right way to due a competitive Link analysis?
Trying to use the saturation report suggestion with no luck for google.com,and looking for away to benchmark either Pagerank or page authority to figure out how many links are required to overr take competitors from diversified sources. What is the process to do this to get the best results for the client.
Competitive Research | | bmcfarlane0