Hello, I have a question about if changing your anchor will hurt you. I had hired an seo company for an audit about 1 month ago on my site. Just to get a feel for where I can improve. Overall summary was very good for my niche. One thing they mentioned was this. This sounded like sound advice and made sense. So I have done that I have went through my link profile best I could. For last 3 weeks I have emailed webmasters and changed anchor text on some links myself. I had spoken with several webmasters I am linked to change my anchor to something seo friendly. Several did with no mention this could be bad. Then last night I got this email from one webmaster Who is right and have I done something that is going to hurt me and if so is it too late to back track and fix what I can ? Please advise.
In some cases this can be harmful. If you have a lot of links on specified website and suddenly change for them anchor it can attract too much attention from Google. Just make it step by step. Try to differentiate those links by adding the additional phrase before and after the main anchor.
Don't over optimize or over use the same anchor text, because those are the cases when panda and penguin actually hit. And don't spam links, this will keep you out of trouble.
And for this reason, you should drop them like a hot potato (if you're paying them for regular audits). I don't know your link profile and if these are natural links or ones you "built"/"spammed" yourself, but if you do not currently have a penalty, don't invite one. As the age old saying goes: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." This "SEO company" has asked you to over-optimise. Do they want a rabid Penguin to chew up your site and crap it out? Or maybe they just know nothing about SEO beyond some crap they have learnt on Captain Spamtastic's blog (my guess). Learn how to do an audit yourself. Yes, read it, learn yourself and even if you are outsourcing at least you know what to look for and what to avoid. But better to save money on useless "SEO experts" and go the DIY route. Learn about on page optimisation (best article ever). I wonder what else they screwed up.
I lost 4 spots on domain authority and 3 spots on page authority at seo Moz but no spots in Google. I was 57 Domain authority and 48 page authority. Now I am 54 domain authority and 44 page authority at Moz. I changed several links. Do you think I should switch them back or do you think I should pray ? This has went on over a course of weeks. I went to seomoz and did a backlink check and I really didn't mess with any high authority links. Just some forums links and a few directories. 90% of what I changed where on forums. OH well, what's done is done.I will just keep link building slowly and hope this helps.
Just stop making these changes, don't waste your time reverting it and learn from your mistakes. Don't worry about DA/PA too much. As good as it is, SEOmoz don't crawl as much of the web that Google does. Just move forward now.
I agree. If the links aren't doing your site any harm, and I don't think they are, then move forward. These days, search engines favor natural links regardless of the anchor text for that link. If you are building links, then make sure that you use variations of your target keywords in the anchor text. Doing so makes the link look more natural to search engines. Hope that helps. Have good day!
Alright thanks. Appreciate that answers. Just when one guy told me I screwed up and then then domain and page authority dropped I went into Chicken Little mode. Im better now.
While that guy was right that this is a risk with such activities: DON'T PANIC. If it's not many links, then there's a low chance of anything bad happening. Learn to do an SEO audit yourself and avoid rubbish companies like the one you hired. Only after your own SEO audit should you consider any link changes (removal - in case you find some spam links). SEO, like anything in life, is full of learning experiences. I hope you didn't pay those donkeys more than $5.
Whats not that many links and when will I know if I have made a mistake. I haven't seen any drop in rankings only positive movement. The only bad thing I have seen happen is my SEO MOZ numbers.
Sorry, I should have also added: It really depends upon the link types. Lots of links are fine, but lots of spammy links aren't. Nothing bad has happened, so don't worry. Ask again if something bad happens. Good luck with your websites!