Anchor text question Hi i know there has been alot of debate on subjects such as the amount of links you should have with your keyphrase in the anchor text - in terms of it looking "natural" or not - and whether if it doesn't look natural you'll get penalised or not. and there are many opinions on this subject. putting the amount of links with your keyphrase in aside for a second - i'd like to know what the general concensus is on whether you should have links contaning your exact keyphrase or not. i have read many articles on the subject and am having trouble deciphering what is the best thing to do. On one hand i have read articles saying you should put the keyphrase you are taragetting into your anchor text - and one the other hand ones saying include all your keywords in the anchor text - but not the exact keyphrase you want to be found for. I think some of the problem comes from the aftermath of the Florida update where some articles were saying Google's OOP was penalising for sites with lots of anchor text matching their page title, whether this is still true, or even whether it was ever true - i don't know. At the minute when asking for reciprocal links, i vary my anchor text , but the vast majority of them are usually one of the keyword phrases i am targetting, or the exact phrase, but have a couple of extra words in there. so i think what i'm asking is - should i be using my targetted keyphrases in my anchor text - or should i be breaking them up and using the component words in each link?
I would use the exact phrase you are targeting as much as possible, on a page by page basis. Especially internal links. Our youth site employs this tactic and enjoy's #1 rankings on almost all desired phrases without penalty.
could it be that more weight is applied to a link like that becasue it is assumed that it is part of an article when its surrounded by text and seemingly in the middle of a sentence?
I think you need to use the kw phrase you designed the site page for. I think this gives your anchor text link its value. After all that kw is what you want to be index for. You can use a different kw anchor link text for other pages.
I wrote a server-side script which randomized anchor text on links. Results appear to be nil. This supports the position that you will not benefit from using different anchor text on various links.
Out test show that, for competitive terms: The exact search terms needs to be on the page once Having varied anchor text appears to produce a more stable result For non-competitive terms, even though out of millions, it is still not necessary to use the term on page.
Jenny, If you say that is your empirical conclusion, fine. But, I must say that I have not found any real evidence of advantages of varying anchor text. Ajeet
Not exactly a scientific investigation, but... A "directory" site that was No.1 for a mass of search terms of the sites that were entered, was also No.1 for its two word name. It picked up over 500 non-recips each of which used that name as anchor. The client search terms still have the same result, but the site name has dropped dramatically. A similar site, with varied anchors, has not been affected in this way. Therefore, the use of the expression "appears."
I like to keep my anchor text exactly the same as my keyword. I think this helps in getting better results in the SERPs.
When i doubt, diversify. The benefits of diversifying include getting related phrases and phrases with slight variation on your main term. I would, however, still go after the exact phrase - in fact more so than the variations, but in the interest of diversifictaion I would mix in some to vary things a bit, just in case this does become some sort of penalty...
There could be many many other factors which caused that result. Use the exact phrase with a couple variations and you should be fine. Also important, get links from topic related sites not viagra and gambling sites (unless those are related to your sites theme).
I try and keep the text natural but when I have the choice I keep the same. I don't believe the site would be penalized for the similarity with the page title, but maybe I'm wrong?!
I usually target two or three phrases in the title and use 1 of those phrases until I rank well for it, then switch phrases. So for example, I might say, "London Hotels, Travel and Tours" in the title and then use "London Hotels" for my anchor text until I rank well for it. Then I change to "London Travel" and I would throw in a few "London Hotels and Travel".