Back links without anchor text

[timpears]

Do back links without anchor text help in any way? I have a bunch of them pointing to my site, according to Backlink Watch. I was just wondering if they are of any help in getting me listed in the SERP.

[JamesGw]

Yes. They don't help for any particular keyword as much, but they definitely help in general. In fact, you probably want at least some of your backlinks to come without anchor text. I usually shoot for 20% exact match anchor, 40% partial match anchor, 15% irrelevant anchor, and 25% no anchor.

[jhonsean]

Its better to have anchor text to take an important role to promote your keywords.

[timpears]

Yes, I know it is better to have anchor text, and that is what I have been doing. But I just checked Backlink Watch and I have 600+ links that have no anchor text for some reason. Not sure how that happened.

[cheesee]

Backlinks without keywords in anchor text still help, but it is better just to include your keywords to gain more link juice from the search engines.

[jhnbrwn]

the best practice is to anchor your primary targeted keywords so that the big G gifts results in respect with your particular keywords, else if you anchoring with other text than keywords, it will only generate you traffic - unnoticeable.

Regards

[delfinparis]

backlinkwatch doesn't always seem to load the anchor text correctly. I wouldn't assume all those links don't have anchor text.

Click on a few and see yourself!

[Steven Dybka]

it's good to have some of those types of links also because they look natural to the search engines

Steve

[paulgl]

Then I'll choose to be unnatural.

There is no reason to have plenty of these.

Google says just the opposite. To use anchor text.
What kind of signal it sends to search engines can be debatable.
No doubt they give more than just a little weight to anchor text.

But the first reason to use a good anchor text is user experience.
You want the user to know what they are getting when clicking the
link. Google makes it very clear to do internal linking using anchor text
that drives the customer to the right page.

Relevant anchor text on a relevant page carries most weight.

For links that are not of this ilk, it probably does not matter much.
The links are lesser value.

But google readily tells you that anchor text IS NATURAL! You want
people to link to you naturally, using great anchor text. If they don't,
it can be (wink wink) a problem. They don't exactly explain what the
problem is, but obviously it not as great as a link with anchor text.
Correct, descriptive anchor text, that is.

Google wants the web connected in the right way. If they did not
know, what would a person think that clicks on a link marked
ebay.com is going to send them to?

Anchor text is as natural as you can get. So all you natural freaks,
take note.

Paul

[timpears]

For the life of me, I don't know why all these links turned up without anchor text. I have not placed any without using an anchor. But that is what I saw when I looked at Backlink Watch. Kind of made me sad as I know that to rank for my keywords, I need them ion my links.

[AgentP]

Originally Posted by JamesGw

Yes. They don't help for any particular keyword as much, but they definitely help in general. In fact, you probably want at least some of your backlinks to come without anchor text. I usually shoot for 20% exact match anchor, 40% partial match anchor, 15% irrelevant anchor, and 25% no anchor.

I agree. Its not always possible to get the anchor text we want especially if we're leaving links on other people's property. Also it looks more naturally than having backlinks with the same anchor text.

[Anna Hussie]

It is always good to have links like this with out anchor text and this still help in total number of links.There are is no doubt that Links may be kept in the keyword which are used in your title.Google takes all the links and then arrange these links according to the keywords.

[kiranraj19]

Yes, backlinks with anchor tag with targeted keywords are very helpful in getting ranking on the search engines

[webhostingrvw]

if you want others link to you with desired anchor text, put it in title and url.

[heliumcreative]

Put link on your keyword is called anchor text. From that anchor text you can get seo advantages for that perticuler keyword or anchor text. But in your case you can not get keyword advantages..

[Alex Peltonen]

Backlinks with no anchors are still effective. If a website was genuinely linking to a page of your site, they're not always going to include anchor text.

[corsleymaxwell]

Originally Posted by timpears

Yes, I know it is better to have anchor text, and that is what I have been doing. But I just checked Backlink Watch and I have 600+ links that have no anchor text for some reason. Not sure how that happened.

I got your point buddy. Generally, it is really advantage to have anchor text since it helps you with your targeted keywords.

[dburk]

Hi Tim,

You ask a good question, however this is one of those topics that need clarification and context to provide a real useful answer. Please allow me to add some clarity to this thread.

First, when you ask "back links without anchor text" you really mean "backlinks without keywords in anchor text" (hat tip to cheesee who correctly re-framed the subject of your question). I think we can agree that all backlinks have anchor text and the main point of your question is whether backlinks without your targeted keyword will help you rank for your targeted keyword.

The answer is both yes and no, depending on the context of the situation. A better way to put it might be to say that in certain circumstances, yes, and in other circumstances, no.

There is no direct benefit in ranking for a targeted keyword using irrelevant anchor text. However, there is the potential to have an indirect benefit.

There are 3 primary values that are passed to your page from a backlink:

• Anchortext
• PageRank
• Trust

The most important of these is anchortext value because you will never receive any ranking benefit from backlinks until after you channel the available link juice through a relevant anchortext link.

So by now you must be wondering in what circumstance can you capitalize on the potential indirect benefit of irrelevant anchortext. Since there are 2 other separate and distinct values that are passed through backlinks you can channel those values through a subsequent relevant anchortext link and capture residual link juice for keyword ranking benefit.

The key to re-channeling all of that potential link juice into your targeted keywords is to use keyword relevant anchor text generously within your internal links. As the PageRank and Trust values are passed from internal page to internal page, through relevant anchor text, you are benefiting from the keyword targeting of those relevant internal links.

[Rollmodl]

Originally Posted by AgentP

I agree. Its not always possible to get the anchor text we want especially if we're leaving links on other people's property. Also it looks more naturally than having backlinks with the same anchor text.

You can use a url shortner like Bitly to add custom text that can be used as anchors which will look more natural.

[yukon]

Backlinking without anchor-text is one of the few perks of an EMD name, example: hxxp://keyword1keyword2.com

However, it is possible to slip in the keyword to another page besides the index page, example: hxxp://domain.com/keyword1keyword2