A lot of people say that Google does not act favorably when the same anchor text is used over and over again. I don't agree with this. Here's why... Think about just about any product. Let's take Blaze Media Pro for example (the most popular of my software products). Type Blaze Media Pro into Google. Who comes up #1 (and #2 in this case also)? Me. That's because I have more links than anyone else pointing to my site with Blaze Media Pro as the anchor text. Think about this. Any other non-generic product you type in works basically the same way. Other people have pages with Blaze Media Pro listed, even CNET, yet mine comes up first. If Google devalued for using the same text, before I even started with SEO, my site would have been nowhere because that was used over and over again. That's why. Now that being said, there are probably other factors that come into this, just as the trust-rank of sites that are linking to you before you start coming up. What I mean is, if I started a new project and started getting links to it by the product name, and a very well established site has a listing for this product, they will most likely come up before my listing at first, because they have the trust factor working for them. However, after a while, mine will come above. You might say "well, that only works with non-generic phrases". Can't be. Other sites are linked to with Blaze Media Pro as the text too. So, I don't see much of a way for Google to reliably narrow it down to only certain types of phrases. Just a little something to think about...
I consider this as true, but there are many more factors involved in your high rankings, for instance: - The name is in the domain, the website blazemp.com is aged over 6 years, and on the webserver IP it's the only website for this server. - It has dmoz and yahoo listings, over 13 .edu backlinks and 9 government backlinks - The website has a deep link ratio of about 45% with a total of over 1.270.000 backlinks, included 2 pr8, 13 pr7 and 40 pr6 backlinks. That backlinks do not all have the same anchor text. Much backlinks contain the words "DVD & CD Burning Software" and "audio/video editing, converter", some of the links contain "Blaze Media Pro" but the majority (as far as I can see) contains product links that vary in anchor text. And also a lot of links contains "Mystik Media" thats why that search result comes as #2 in google. - I run an old website (over 6 years of age, runs with only about 20 websites on a server and a deeplink ratio of 89%) ranks very well with a lots of keywords (for it's niche) and for the domain name. Without very much backlinks. - I've created newer websites (other niche) with lots and lots of more backlinks but the domain is only 1,5 years old and runs on a server with a lot more websites, getting high ranking for this website is alot harder. I believe one of the strong points in getting high rankings is running a website for a long time and keep it with a few websites on a dedicated server and get a high deep link ratio. Some strange things I've seen with your website. This result will give a title of Blaze Media Pro and This result with give a title of Audio/Video Editing, Converter Software (CD MP3 WAV WMA OGG AVI ... Let's see what others have to say, could be an interesting thread. (I'm off for now, take another look tomorrow)
No doubt that the primary factor is the number / quality of backlinks with your desired anchor text... Having varying anchor text backlinks won't make you rank higher for the first term your targetting, but it will make things look more natural (and thus less likely to be caught in any sort of filter or penalty( and will help you rank for other terms as well. You don't want all your eggs in one basket, besides it's very easy to rank for your domain name even without a large number of backlinks or age... even in a competitive market.
I agree that it is better for other searches to use varrying anchor text. I was just saying that I don't think it causing any sort of problem to use the same anchor text, since just about any product search will bring up the product homepage first because it has the most backlinks with that as the anchor. As for those two searches showing title differently, I think the Blaze Media Pro one is pulled from the DMOZ listing when that is used in the search. It is interesting, though.
Having a nice anchor text. I have a site that never got into google for my keywords (never as on the first 25 pages). Now that I have spent some time and money getting simple anchor text ads out there in the past months, I am now number 4 on google for one keyword! I checked this particular keyword to see how many times it is searched. All of 219 times last month? LOL
WhatiFind...your comments make me think about the importance of lesser sites on an IP. I used that same tool that you used to get all that info a couple weeks ago. I can't remember the web site for it now, though. What was it again?
Chris, at http://www.domaintools.com/ you can find all the info needed. You can use the reverse IP tool (registration required) to see what other websites hosts on the same IP server. You´re right about the dmoz listing difference that shows up in the search engine.
Cool. Thanks. EDIT: Actually, I thought it was the same (from the domain name), but it's not the one I used before. The one I used --- you typed in the domain, and then it presented a lot of information all in one place.
meybe there are other factors like your site was the originator of the keyword "blaze media pro".. before you created your software (and the site) nobody was looking for this phrase.
The reason you are number 1 is because most of your links have the anchor text relating to your product. If you had "Johns MP3 Software" anchor text links and the site is johnsmp3software.com and the site is about johns mp3 software then you would rank number 1 for the term "johns mp3 software". Now imagine you have the same site but build links with the anchor text "Music software" google knows that "music software" is a descriptive term and that its not the name of the site. Also google wants to show the best results for its users regardless of how many links you have. If I search for blaze media pro and the official site isn't at number 1 then google has failed.
Check this one out: http://www.google.com/search?q=video+converter&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&num=10 The title there is from my site, but the description is from DMOZ. They like to mix and match.
Great post Chris. Seoinc has done this. They have arround 10k text with a single anchor text " search engine optimization"