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Internal Links | Too Many Exact Match?

by 3rnald0
11 replies
  • SEO
    • |
When link building Google has made us aware that you have to vary the anchor text with links pointing to your site. My question comes with internal linking. Can you link to a page about "building muscle" and have the anchor text "build muscle" every time. Or do you have to vary the anchor text like with external links?
#exact #internal #links #match
  • Profile picture of the author Punit12
    Here is an excellent article on Anchor Text Variation.
    Have a glance! This will help you..
    Best Practices for Anchor Text Variation
    Signature

    Punit Kansara
    Seo Strategist
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Internal links don't matter for having the same anchor-text, it's normal to have site-wide links.
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    • Profile picture of the author jxam69
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Internal links don't matter for having the same anchor-text, it's normal to have site-wide links.
      Actually, I've seen some evidence on my large sites that overuse of anchor text can negatively affect rankings.

      Specifically - site wide links, regardless of their position on the page, can cause the target URL to drop in the SERPs for the anchor text as a keyword. I've also seen it for links that appear on a significant set of pages (like several thousand).

      EG: If there is a sitewide header link for "best widgets" then the target URL still ranks well for everything it used to except "best widgets" and any similar variations such as "top widgets" - rankings for "blue widgets" remain unaffected.

      I've only seen this on large sites, not small ones.

      It started around the last week of November last year.

      I have experimented by changing the anchor text to something related, but that I don't want to rank for, such as changing "best widgets" to simply "widgets" and I've seen the rankings for "best widgets" slowly come back, but not for the pages where I didn't make the change.

      I'd be very interested to hear from anyone else that has large sites, at least 1,000 pages, to see if they've seen anything similar.
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      • Profile picture of the author Maecenas23
        Logically thinking it should matter since the link juice is also decreased.
        Though, in their crazy run for relevancy at a certain moment they might hit websites which are not using link-diversity inside the project ( even if it's stupid).
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      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
        Originally Posted by jxam69 View Post

        Actually, I've seen some evidence on my large sites that overuse of anchor text can negatively affect rankings.
        Not talking about overuse, but internal linking. Every CMS worth it's salt uses
        the same anchor text in some menu, side bar, etc. It's so common, it's not
        funny. Even the WP wannabe-webmasters have that "about" link on every page.

        Look at the top of every page here. The same link:
        WarriorForum - Internet Marketing Forums
        As well as every thread in this part having the same anchor text:
        Adsense / PPC / SEO Discussion Forum
        And how many threads are there here? Zillions. With the same anchor
        text. Over and over.

        Once again, unfortunately, people keep misquoting google on anchor text.
        They never said anything about using the same anchor text, varying it, or
        any other such nonsense.

        People just think that by varying anchor text, they can still spam and do
        idiotic link building. Why not just STOP the idiotic link building and not
        worry?

        Paul
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        If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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        • Profile picture of the author jxam69
          Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

          Not talking about overuse, but internal linking. Every CMS worth it's salt uses
          the same anchor text in some menu, side bar, etc. It's so common, it's not
          funny. Even the WP wannabe-webmasters have that "about" link on every page.

          Look at the top of every page here. The same link:
          WarriorForum - Internet Marketing Forums
          As well as every thread in this part having the same anchor text:
          Adsense / PPC / SEO Discussion Forum
          And how many threads are there here? Zillions. With the same anchor
          text. Over and over.

          Once again, unfortunately, people keep misquoting google on anchor text.
          They never said anything about using the same anchor text, varying it, or
          any other such nonsense.

          People just think that by varying anchor text, they can still spam and do
          idiotic link building. Why not just STOP the idiotic link building and not
          worry?

          Paul

          I'm not sure if Paul was addressing me or not - but I am aware of everything he said above (Hi Paul!).

          I'm not quoting or mis-quoting google - I'm talking about actual measurements taken on two of my large sites, and I've spoken with one other webmaster who has experienced the same thing.

          To elaborate further - it appears to happen when the over-internally-linked keyword is a competitive term. In the case of "Warrior Forum" there are only a small handful of sites trying to rank for this, so I wouldn't expect it to be a problem for this forum - and a quick check of the SERPs shows that it's not.

          There was also a thread at Webmaster World discussing basically the same issue - Sites penalised for link on main keyword to home? Google SEO News and Discussion forum at WebmasterWorld

          If anyone else out there has experienced something like this I'd like to talk with you - perhaps we could combine our investigations and work out what's happening.
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  • Profile picture of the author 3rnald0
    Thanks Yukon!
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  • Profile picture of the author dejaone
    The same rules apply to internal links if they're in context links.
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    • Profile picture of the author CatherineMay
      Originally Posted by dejaone View Post

      The same rules apply to internal links if they're in context links.
      This reply confuses me...what do you mean by "the same rules?" This reply seems to contradict Yukon above, or maybe I'm just not understanding the semantics.
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      • Profile picture of the author dejaone
        Originally Posted by CatherineMay View Post

        This reply confuses me...what do you mean by "the same rules?" This reply seems to contradict Yukon above, or maybe I'm just not understanding the semantics.
        If the internal links (anchor text) are used in the body of articles, it's necessary to have natural keyword variations. If internal links are from navigation bar, anchor text is the same site-wide.
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  • Profile picture of the author Karan Rawat
    Thanks Dejaone
    Signature
    1800CS
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