Скачать или смотреть Anchor Text Diversity

In this lecture we are going to discuss "Anchor Text Diversity".

For a long time keyword rich anchor text was the link building way. If you wanted to rank, you picked the keyword or words you wanted to rank for and then used one of those keywords as the link for every (or nearly every) link you built. Lets use cookingwithspam.com, a large percentage of your inbound links would have looked like spam recipes, spam meals, spam specialties.

Google now clearly interprets exact match anchor text of this nature as an attempt to manipulate its algorithm. Many webmaster tool warnings due to unnatural links are really just a cause of anchor text.

This doesn't mean that you can't have any keyword rich anchor text out there. It can be argue that you should, in fact, still have some links out there that use such text. The important word in that previous sentence is some. It's all a matter of amount.

It's relatively easy to avoid. There are so many different ways to place anchor text.

Let's use our friends at Majestic SEO as an example. They created an infograph that details how Majestic SEO works. The natural place to put their link would be as a caption at the bottom, giving them credit for putting the infographic together. Some examples could be

Infographic courtesy of Majestic SEO (branded)
For more information, click here (white noise)
How Majestic SEO works. Bringing SEO to small businesses.(long tail)

In some regards, the anchor text you use is just as significant to your link as the site it is published on. Not only will anchor text help determine the value of your links, but it will also shape how your backlink portfolio looks to Google. If your not staying on top of anchor text best practices, the links you build could appear unnatural to Google and result in your site being penalized.

In the early stages of linking, most sites would simply link with an exact match URL as the anchor text. For example, a link to Page One Power may look like this -- www.pageonepower.com .



The use of tactics such as this to try and game the system has resulted in Google making updates to their algorithm that punished sites using this tactic.

With the emergence of Google and the value they place on links people began to realize that they could game the system by flooding the web with links back to their site that used exact match anchor text for the keywords they wanted to rank for. However, as it does with most spam, Google came up with updates to their algorithm that punished sites using this tactic.

Most notably, the Penguin update heavily penalized sites with large percentages of exact match anchor text and formed the strategies people use today.

Due to updates like Penguin, it has become clear what types of anchor text strategies should be pursued and which should be avoided. Exact match anchor text should be used sparingly and should only make up a small percentage of your backlink portfolio.

The rest of your portfolio should consist of a combination of things. Two common anchor text strategies involve branded anchor text (i.e. pageonepwer.com) and partial-match or long-tailed anchor text. Partial-match and long-tailed anchor text include a partial phrase or portion of the keyword or term you are trying to rank for rather than the exact term.

The use of "white noise" anchor text is another option that will help round out your backlink portfolio. White noise anchor text refers to links that have the anchor text "click here" or "his/her website" and are usually used around keywords or phrases in close proximity. These are the anchor text best practices that you should be employing so you can build a natural backlink profile that won't get you penalized by Google.

I'm sure some of you are thinking to yourself "What is the right combination of exact, partial, and white noise anchor text." Unfortunately there is no exact number to be used. Why? Because well that wouldn't be natural. Think of natural as random. If everyones backlink profile looked the same then it wouldn't be natural.

So lets take a look at a healthy profile.

The progression of anchor text is something that has developed and changed over a number of years. As Google continues to perfect their algorithm, anchor text strategy will no doubt continue to change. However, for now it is important to adhere to anchor text best practices to get the most out of your links and ensure you don't appear to be gaming the system.