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Anchor text and backlinks

by JFVJ
9 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello everyone,

I just finish my first website. I found 2 good keywords that i would like to optimize for. This question is for those who have some experience with SEO: for rank in Google for those keywords i have to use anchor text, right? I have read that Google does not like that people try to "gain the system", by this i mean, they do not like people to manipulate them to get high in the search ranking. So my question is, will Google see that i am trying to "kinda" manipulate the system if i have only 2 keywords? I am asking this, beacause i know that Google likes diversity and likes things to be natural, so i am not sure if He sees always the same anchor text for the same pages, he will penalize me.

Thanks, Fabio
#anchor #backlinks #text
  • Profile picture of the author Sam Tirut
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    • Profile picture of the author Shaunman
      If I were you I would use a lot more then 2 anchor text links. Between 4-10 would be a lot more diverse. Google does punish sites that are only getting links from 1 anchor text.

      No worries...there are millions of websites out there that only focus on one or two keywords and they have never been penalized...and if it were that easy to get penalties trust me all of the competition out there would be backlinking their competitors sites and getting them penalized...just use white hat tactics in your linking strategies and you will be just fine.
      Right, but I wouldn't be supprised if Google did punish sites that are only getting backlinks with 1 or 2 anchor text. The reason being if you have 5,000 links and no diversification then there are one of two possibilities out there.

      1. Either the site owner was doing SEO and in this case they probably want to discount them as much as possible.

      2. Someone else built backlinks for them. But because there is not really any diversification in the backlinks it is safe to say that none of them are likely natural anyways.

      Whatever the case may be there probably isn't a reason for Google to value an undiversified link portfolio as high as a diversified one.

      Just my 2 cents.
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      • Profile picture of the author JFVJ
        So if i concentrate on only, say 4 keywords, i would be fine?
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        • Profile picture of the author Shaunman
          So if i concentrate on only, say 4 keywords, i would be fine?
          4 would be a good minimum. But if you wanted to be doubly safe you could always go higher.
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  • Profile picture of the author neno
    I don't think there will be any kind pf penalty for using one or two keywords. But if you can consider some long phrases versions of these 2 keywords for backlinking you will see great results and more visibility in search engines.
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  • Profile picture of the author JamesMSpacey
    First, remember Google isn't a person. It's just a company that provides a search engine and therefore isn't All Powerful. The Google search engine is just a mathematical formula that TRIES to determine relevancy and authority to rank sites for users in mind. So, if your site is user friendly and targeted to specific keywords then it stands to reason Google should like it for the keywords you're targeting. Backlinks are natural on the internet. There's no 'formula' for how many backlinks to get, just link to your site wherever you can and where relevant use anchor text links. Where it's not relevant don't use anchor text. Don't worry so much.
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    • Profile picture of the author JFVJ
      I guess we can´t know that really for sure. Thanks everyone for helping.
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    • Profile picture of the author warriorkay
      Originally Posted by JamesMSpacey View Post

      First, remember Google isn't a person. It's just a company that provides a search engine and therefore isn't All Powerful. The Google search engine is just a mathematical formula that TRIES to determine relevancy and authority to rank sites for users in mind. So, if your site is user friendly and targeted to specific keywords then it stands to reason Google should like it for the keywords you're targeting. Backlinks are natural on the internet. There's no 'formula' for how many backlinks to get, just link to your site wherever you can and where relevant use anchor text links. Where it's not relevant don't use anchor text. Don't worry so much.
      Very well said. People seem to make it more
      complicated than it really is. Yikes!

      Kingsley
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  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    Forget trying to manipulate the system.
    50% of the time do your main keywords.
    The other half, mix it up, using real sentences.

    But anchor text has nothing to do with content.
    Make sure your page is seriously SEO'd on-page before
    thinking of doing anything.

    Google could care less what your anchor text is. I've
    seen links with a "." turn up. But you need to think
    like a surfer and visitor, not a search engine.

    A lot of people will disagree, I know. But google is not
    going to rank you for keywords just because they are
    in some anchor text. Google wants you to use the right
    anchor text for the same reason they want your page
    navigation to be easy and understandable. It's a good
    practice.

    Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author Social-Media-Marketing
    Each page on your site should be targeting a different keyword phrase... maybe 2-3 keyword phrases per page if the phrases are almost identical. Regardless of which keyword phrase(s) a page is targeting, you want to vary your link text and in most cases, vary them a lot.

    There are many reasons to vary your link text, but the two most important reasons are:

    1) It looks natural to Google when a page has lots of inbound links with different link text. It lookst totally unnatural for a page with 100 links from external sites to have the exact same link text... or even to have just 4 variations.
    2) Varying your link text will help you rank for lots of other variations of the targeted phrase that you might not have considered.

    For example, one page on a mortgage site may have a title of "Mortgage Loans - Mortgage Home Loans - Mortgage Loan" because those are the 3 most important keyword phrases they want that page to rank for. If a page is targeting multiple keyword phrases then those phrases should be ordered from most important to least important in the title.

    In the above example where my page is targeting 3 keyword phrases ("mortgage loans", "mortgage home loans", "mortgage loan") for every 100 links I build I might vary my link text similar to the following:

    "mortgage loans" x20
    "mortgage home loans" x15
    "mortgage loan" x10
    "mortgage" x 7
    "mortgages" x 5
    "mortgage purchase loans" x5
    "mortgage purchase loan" x4
    "best mortgage loans" x4
    "best mortgage loan" x4
    "home loans" x3
    "home loan" x3
    "best mortgage loans" x2
    "low interest mortgage loans" x2
    "home purchase mortgage" x2
    "purchase mortgage loans" x2
    "purchase mortgage loan" x2
    "home purchase loans" x1
    "home purchase loan" x1
    "home mortgage loans" x1
    "home mortgage loan" x1
    "mortgage loans for your home" x1
    "mortgage loan for your home" x1
    "get a mortgage loan today" x1
    "competitive mortgage loans" x1
    "mortgage loans with instant approval" x1

    This is just an example. But the point is that your primary keyword phrase should have the second most exact occurances in the link text of your back links. Your secondary targeted keyword phrase should have the second most exact occurances in the link text of your back links. Your tertiary targeted keyword phrase should have the third most exact occurances in the link text of your back links. Then there should be lots of variations (in reality, probably even more than those listed above) with low occurances of each. It should trail off pretty quickly to the onsie-twosies.
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