Over using Anchor text

I've heard mixed opinions on whether you can be penalised but I think a couple of my sites have been - I've seen big drops in the rankings.

Is there a Google "threshold" for building for certain keywords?

 

we think probably, yes, especially if it's all identical.

but youve seen drops just recently?

weve noticed movement in rankings built primarily on anchor text recently, but more like a general devaluation rather than specific site penalties.

is that all youve been doing, no onsite work too?

 

It would create bad impact to your visitors if you add too many anchor text without making sense.

 

Hi,

One of my sites got penalize, slower SERP, also Decresed PR .

In My side I only did more link building for a single keywords, and my site got penalize in the last of the months. the only problem is that the i have added more link for a single keyword.

 

On site stuff is very similar, but one site I was building for only one keyword plummeted (went from 60 odd position to 601 for that keyword a few weekd ago). The position 601 seems very deliberate too, like Google was saying "You may no longer rank in the top 600"

any thoughts?

 

This could be the same for me, although PR did not drop.

 

Actually who is in this world will only optimize for one single keyword?
You need to target more keywords in your link building campaign, do some researches and you will find dozens

In my opinion, over optimizing any website using a single anchor text only during the links building process...
will case a lot of problems, specially if it's a new website, you will suffer to get ranked for sure!

 

Agreed, thanks for the advice. i used Googles external keyword tool to find some suitable traffic driving variations of keyword

 

it does possibly sound like a filter doesnt it?

not one Ive seen or heard of, but possibly a bit like the -950 filter which is more usually for onsite over-optimisation, - maybe there's a similar thing in operation for external links going over a certain threshold of identical anchor text?

interesting.

 

My guess is that you wouldn't be penalised but that after a certain threshold links with the same anchor text would count for less and less. As already said in this thread, you need to vary the anchor text anyway.

Penalising for onsite optimisation is one thing - you are responsible for the content of your own site - but penalising for offsite factors would be a bit harsh as someone else could give you links with the same anchor text.

 

that would make sense brian.

 

Anchor text cannot result in penalizing a site. If google used to penalize sites for anchor text over use, then people will start to do all this for their competitors in order to get them penalized [building lot of over used anchor text backlinks for the competitors to get them penalized ]. The worst that can happen is that google will ignore such links, that is, you will get no credit for those links, where you have over used anchor text.

 

You site was not penalized.

Google made changes on its algo and that why the SER change drastically.

But its not against your site.

As far as i understand Google is fading-out PR and links and fade-in content.

 

Anchor text can't penalize you but if they are all the same, it might be ignored by google, you should vary your anchor text to make it look natural

 

Just think of it from the SE's point of view, it would be very rare that all of the people linking to your site organically would chose the same anchor text.

 

You definitely want to vary your anchor text. You send up a red flag when you use the same exact anchor text for all of your links. Plus, by varying your anchor text and using some additional long tail terms and related keywords, you will be able to rank for a wider range of keywords.

 

I disagree, I think most people would choose the title by default so maybe choose a good title that is SEO friendly.

 

I recently had a drop in page rank which I beleive to be the result of new google standards for anchor text.
I have one site that i went completely nuts on with anchored text linking to other pages internally. Im talking serious wikipedia style interlinking all over the place.
After the most recent google page rank update, i went from a pr3 to a pr2 on this particular site.
Ive just made some changes to all the anchor text....we'll see if it makes a difference in the comming months.

 

True that. Having the target phrase in the domain definitely gives you more license to use that AT more I would suspect.

 

Strongly agree !! google does not like too many anchoring [ unneeded anchoring ] - try to have a l imit on the onpage optimization . but yet i have also seen some blogs trying keyword stuffing and entering into 30000's alexa rank - maybe google has not yet recognized it .