How Important is Placement of Anchor Text
-
I'm working on a series of guest posts to help promote a site. These are competitive, high quality posts from a well-respected resource in the industry. I placed the author introduction at the front of the posts, with anchor text for the keywords we are targetting (e.g., "This is a guest post by John Doe, a [keyword] who ... and writes about [keyword].").
I understand that having the anchor text in a prominent location - such as near the front of the post - will probably be more authoritative than a sentence at the very end. My question: how significant is this difference?
The blog that I am posting on wants to include author information at the end only and only have one link using the site name (which doesn't contain keywords). The post I sent had two deep links using keyword-rich anchor text, placed at the beginning. I am trying to decide whether to walk away and keep shopping the material around.
-
I'll also add this - if the link and it's surrounding text are NOT directly related in a laser-focus manner to the content topical focus of the article itself, it's not even an ideal link from a "pure" SEO perspective, even if it's high up in the content area.
Which just reinforces the whole "don't get lost on this being such a big deal" concept.
-
From a pure SEO perspective, the higher up in the page's main content area the better. However once you introduce overall inbound link profile factors, if all you have are top of content area links, it looks unnatural. So eventually it becomes a negative. That's why it's vital to not get hung up on any single particular SEO tactic. Aiming for "perfect" SEO ultimately causes you to end up with "flawed" SEO.
-
Thanks to all who have responded. Let me bring it back to my original question, though, which I may have obscured with all of the related information. All else being equal: on a scale of 1 to 10, how important is it that the link and anchor text appear in the first paragraph in the post instead of 500+ words later in the author attribution box? I know that there's some benefit (in terms of more authority), but how much?
Of course, I know this is somewhat speculative. Just wanting to get your views.
-
Link placement is pretty much the whole point in block level analysis so it's definitely important. But all I know is that links from within the body content surrounded by relevant text wins against footer, side bar, and links page links. I "think" but could be wrong, the only link worth more is a link from the main nav... but I assume that would only be for internal links anyway?
-
" It's a so-so site."
Then maybe you can get a better deal elsewhere.
I publish some "contributed content" but as soon as the person starts talking about links and anchor text my interest in the content falls through the floor. I immediately worry about linking to a site where manipulation is happening..... the content usually isn't worth it after that.
Just sayin' how some people view articles and links.
-
Thanks for the response. It's a so-so site. The site has a DmR of 4.2, but doesn't seem to pass much authority to the blog portion of the site (the blog is integrated into a larger website). The article will be relevant to the site visitors, but we are unlikely to see any conversions from visitors of this site (it's a legal article and the attorney who authored it can only practice in her jurisdiction). Other blog posts by guest authors don't seem to rank particularly well, but there are some exceptions.
-
Every site needs a variety of inbound links from a variety of sources, with a variety of "footprints". So don't turn down a high value site opportunity just because you don't get the kind of link profile you think you need from it.
Not only is it good for SEO to have such a variety, it's good for visitor click-through traffic, which in turn can lead to more interaction, more engagement, and more buzz. Those then in turn bring back even more value from an SEO perspective in full circle.
-
Without further information about the website... the one that you consider walking away from might have the best links - even if you only get one of them.
The guy obviously has his standards and isn't going to prostitute his site to linkbuilders.
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
-
What's more important page authority Vs domain authority?
Hello everyone, I am fairly new to SEO so I'm still trying to get my head round everything, I am currently looking into some back links .. well looking at competitor's back links to copy. I was just wondering what's more important page authority or domain authority? So for example if a page has a page authority of 50 and a domain authority of 10 is that better than if a page have page authority 10 and a domain authority of 50. Thanks so much in advance!
Link Building | | vanplus1 -
Generic Anchor Vs Branded Anchor?
Hi, I have always been very careful when building links, making sure that I use lots of variations relevant to my site in the anchor text, so keep the ratio diluted. However, in recent weeks I have stumbled on some SEO's focussing wholly around branded anchor terms for future link building, I feel that a branded focussed link profile looks more natural. I'm interested to know what the rest of Moz community think about this? Thanks
Link Building | | dt18070 -
Value of Links WITHOUT anchor text?
Does having links without or with irrelent (such as your name on blog comments) anchor text improve your SERP ranking?
Link Building | | charles10 -
SERP Placement oddity
I am working through the SEO Moz tools and came across something strange. I was hoping someone more familiar could help me understand. Turn off Google's personal search and use the term "Lake Keowee Real Estate". Compare the first two results that come back. Rank 2 has 5o times more inbound links and significantly more domain authority etc. Any quick explanation for things like this? I'm still on page 3, so I've got a way to go my self, just wondered as I came across it while researching competitors. Thanks, Steven Screen%20Shot%202012-02-05%20at%203.42.35%20PM.png
Link Building | | sfmatthews0 -
Are Guest Post Anchor Text Links Evil?
Hi, In the recent free SEOMoz webinar about What's Ailing the Linkgraph, Rand Fishkin says that corporations try to get anchor text guest posts on his wife's blog and he suggests this is manipulative. Do you agree that anchor text links in guest posts are manipulative? Do you think that Google will take action against this tactic in the future? Thanks!
Link Building | | SparkplugDigital0 -
How to get a plain text instead of csv output for backlink analyzer?
The link analyzer looks really great, I'm using it now to do some reverse engineering and it is seemingly able to give me far more than just the 1k limit we can get from yahoo site. But it spits out the results to a csv file which just has everything bunched up into a bunch of gibberish. Is there a way to get a plain text file so its readable/usable? Or how to convert or view the csv file properly? Thanks
Link Building | | googlealchemist0 -
Anchor Text Percentage
At the linklove conference, many of the speakers emphasized the importance of not having too high a percentage of anchor text for your incoming links, because it looks unnatural. I was wondering whether this applies to your keyword being in the anchor text along with other things, or just exact anchor text matches? For example, if my keyword is widgets, is it bad to have too many of these: Please buy widgets from Acme Corp. or Please buy Acme Corp widgets.
Link Building | | stevenmusumeche0 -
Longer Tail Keyword for URL and Anchor text
Hello If I am trying to rank for the term blue widgets as a primary, and also the term shiny blue widgets , and big shiny blue widgets as secondary - would the url /blue-widgets or /shiny-blue-widgets or /big-shiny-blue-widgets be better (all else equal) Would the word shiny / big dilute or affect of KW in the domain for the rankings for blue widgets (all esle equal) Regarding anchor text of inbound links, if the anchor text is shiny blue widgets, is that going to help me rank for both queries "blue widgets" and "shiny blue widgets" equally? (all else equal), or would including shiny, affect my ranking for "bliue widgets" Or is it better to keep the anchor text as just blue widgets (of course we could vary it) but Im trying to get a feel for how that would work as we are builfing some links I can control the anchor text. I hope this was clear enough Thanks Sam
Link Building | | Impact-2015550