Keyword in Anchor Text can hurt you....

What you mean it should be varied?

Agree, most of the people get hurt because they target the same keyword over and over again which starts looking suspicious as every natural link profile will contains all kinds of links with all kinds of text ranging from different keywords to the domain name of the site or simply something random that describes the page.

Actually I am not.. I had read about it and ran it here to hear what you guys had to say...

Here is the original post...

Keywords in Anchor Text Links Down The Drain


If you dedicate a daily effort to obtain one way links to your website with keyword based anchor text links, DON'T! You are hurting your SERP. Google filters will measure your links and if they have keywords in the anchor text they will be devaluated. This might be part of the latest updates in Google. It might be possible for you to insert a few links with variations in your keywords but the effect remains to be seen.


This is once again another effort by Google in order to have websites building natural links. The other night I spent 35 minutes posting comments in "doFollow" blogs and posting a couple of articles here and there using the keywords "Miami Web Design". The next day, our position in Google dropped down about 7 spaces. This has happened to us 3 times already. However, then we took the next step and worked ourselves a few comments using for anchor text just the name of our company (brand) in "doFollow" blogs as well as "noFollow" blogs and to our surprise our listing came back to its original position.
Here is our analysis

Everything nowadays with Google revolves around the word "Natural". If you pay for links, this is considered a shortcut and a very harmful action if I may say; it is actually one of the worse ideas. If you comment on blogs leaving keyword based links (inside the anchor text), once again you are buying yourself prosperity without really proving that your website is genuine and provides good content. If you publish articles well, that is a different story since it is an honest action and it demonstrates your efforts to provide a helpful resource for your customers. So what is the ideal candidate to give good PageRank? The ideal candidate is the one who unconditionally comments on blogs and by unconditionally I mean that you are contributing to a conversation in a blog and since you do not expect anything from it you are not leaving your keyword based link.
Regardless of how grandiose Google is, it is still a piece of software; you can look at it the way you want to. Of course Google was, and is raised by a number of very talented and intelligent people but it is still a software and there are always corners to go around every software. Mix it up! Every time you work on your backlinks use your brand name instead of a keyword and for every "doFollow" link you accomplish sacrifice yourself and obtain two "noFollow" links. Keep Google on the doubt instead of confirming that all you want is the PageRank by just adding keyword based anchor links in "doFollow" scenarios.

I totally agree. When it comes to varying your anchor text, it is not for the singular page, but for the site as a whole.

People with those thin mini sites that are trying to just target the highest volume keyword are the ones that usually only target one keyword for the entire site. Also they usually only target the home page.

When I am building links I focus on one keyword at a time; this is for a single page. Once that one is ranking high in the serps I then go after another keyword; new keyword means new page/post. This way my anchor text is technically varied when it comes to the site as a whole.

-- Jeff

More people should watch that Whiteboard Friday. That was one of the better ones they have done in the last few months, in my opinion.

That's a very good link, thank you sir!

I make more money selling links on my authority sites than anything else.
Yesterday, the total was almost $200 alone. People who buy links
do them the right way. How is google going to know a friggin paid
link? And who cares? Their whole empire is paid on PAID LINKS.

People who buy links want links in context, with their chosen anchor
text. It's a signal. One of many. They want the link on only one page,
not global. And of course these people do no want a big red flag around
the link saying it's paid. But that has to do with other things. Like
tricking the reader into thinking it's real info. The best of both worlds.
Targeted traffic and backlinks!

I mean come on. These same people are screaming in other threads
about how great it is to have a bunch of external links that point to
other authoritative sites. Oh, so it's okay to link to any site, just not
get paid for it? Get real people. Pay up or no link. If you are providing
external links for free, man get with it.

So many of you speak out of both sides of your mouths. You want to
blog comment, complete with a link, and say that enhances a site.
But paying for a link is somehow bad?!?!?!? Come on.

There is a difference between hurting and helping. If you put 10,000
links all with "make money online," the whole thing can look crazy.
But that just gets ignored. Nothing more, nothing less.

You cannot control who, what, or where you are linked from.

If you people are soooooooooooo worried about getting penalized
from links, then you had better put up large signs on your site
spelling out the conditions that people MUST follow if they link to
you! Or better still, just say, "Don't link to me because I cannot control
how you do it!"

EDIT: I just thought of something silly. How come nobody mentioned that
adobe ranks for "click here" solely based on anchor text?

Exactly. They sure got hurt......

Paul