How much do you have to mix up anchor text to avoid a penalty? I've written 15-20 articles in last TWO months with some mix of anchor text "quick house sale", "my quick house sale", "a quick house sale", "quick house sale England" with the odd "quick home sale" or "quick property sale" or "sell my home quickly" thrown in. Suddenly, today, my site has dropped from 24 to 31. Doesn't sound much but I've spent the last 2 months building it up from 29 to 24 and now I'm back to where I started. Is this likely to be due to not mixing the anchor text enough????? If it is due to a insufficient mix of anchor text, do I JUST need to get some irrelevant stuff in the mix - or have the last 2 months of link building been lost?
I think you should wait a while. Sometimes Google will push the new content into the top for a day or two. It's also likely that your competitors are working doubly hard at backlinking too.
If I add some irrelevant stuff into the mix, will my previous articles (with good anchor text) start to be counted again? Or is it a case of - once they've been dismissed as too similar the links are premanently discounted?
Honestly, I wouldn't mix up my anchor text that much. I would have a main keyword to target and then a couple of long-tail keywords. It's not so much as wanting to avoid penalties as links are only discounted, but it's to make sure that you get the most of your link building efforts.
That's pretty much what I've done - with a few extra "mix up" anchor text thrown in. But suddenly, in one day, the site has fallen from postition 24 to 31. Am not sure whether all my links will have been discounted or whether if I add some more "mixed up" anchor text Google will at some stage add them back in again?
Your only backlink work has been 20 articles? Your anchor text variations that you did would not be the reason for going from 24 to 31. There are a lot of other variables like google thinking other sources/websites are more valuable to the person searching. Do not throw irrelevant stuff in the mix. Just keep getting backlinks...and get more than 20 in 2 months. The anchor text variation you gave looks good, but make sure you are giving more weight on the specific keyword you want to rank for.
Nawny - I thought you were meant to throw irrelevant stuff into the mix to stop links being discarded as all identical? I suppose I assumed that my links had all been discarded because 2 months ago I was position 29, then I've gradually climbed to 24 with each article submitted and then yesterday in a single day I fell back to 31. Although I've only had 20 or so articles indexed, these have mainly been in the top pr directories and I'm afraid I just don't have the spare time to do more at the moment. If links have been dismissed as being too similar would addingmore irrelvant stuff into the mix fix the problem or are they permanently discarded? Does anyone have any experience of this???
I don't mix my anchor text at all. Despite the rumors of natural looking links, I haven't seen any evidence that you should be mixing it.
Try to get your links to look as natural as possible. If google sees 1000 links with the same text, it's very suspicious. So yes, add some "Click here" links, etc.
From my experience, the ranking goes up and down on a daily basis and even from place to place on the same day. The rank can be different depending on which google data center you hit because they aren't synced, thus different results.
I have had the same thing happen to me as well. I had built my site up to page 13 but I have dropped back to 19 today. The competition for my keywords are fairly weak but I just cant get up there and alot of my article submissions are showing up
first of all remove your forum links in your footer. i think this dilutes your inbound links. concentrate on GOOD sources and if you really want to see movements in the rankings you're gonna have to bite the bullet and buy some links. article submission is probably the best FREE technique but it can only be so effective. look for related blogs and get some blogroll links.
Many thanks all for replies. Has anyone had any experience of discoutned links getting added back in once more "natural" links are added to mix or are links permanently lost once discoutned???
Just mix it up its unusual or unnaturual for all sites to use the exact same copy to link to a site so just change the phrasing in the links.
There is no one single-best answer. A good rule-of-thumb guideline is to use 60% of your links with your primary keyword, and the remaining 40% of the links having some kind of variation. You should also pick keyword variations that will still reinforce your primary keyword phrase.
supersi provides a decent rule of thumb, 60% containing your main keyword, let the other keywords be read more, click here, your website name, here, variation is key to anchor text. One comment on your ranking moving up and down. After a link campaign, I typically see a jump in the rankings for a short time, and then a pull back in the rankings. Keep at building links and you will see the ranking normalize and improve over time. To provide a practical example, think about breaking news and how all of it sudden it ranks well in the search engines, but over time the buzz weens and the rankings do as well.
You did more than enough. Don't pay much attention to Google dance, it always happens. Just keep on building qualitative backlinks and give SEs some time to rank your site higher.
Using an anchor text to the articles will be a very big help for all the readers because they were trying to find a resources. while reading your articles.