We love exact match anchor text! It's the Holy Grail of links that make our rankings soar - or does it? Many SEOs predict Google will continue to devalue exact match anchors as their algorithm evolves in the age of Panda. We've seen evidence of this phenomenon over the past year and many expect to see the value of exact match drop even further.
Many webmasters wonder if they should give up link building altogether. Not at all! Search engines collect a ton of data through links to better understand your content and how valuable it is. Recognizing these link signals can help you make the most out of every link you gain. Do you have any tips on anchor text? Let us know in the comment below!
Video Transcription
Howdy SEOmoz! Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. My name is Cyrus. I do SEO here at SEOmoz. This week I want to talk about anchor text. Every week I get emails, I am sure you do too, from webmasters asking for a link, and they always want that exact match anchor text for the specific term they're trying to rank for. It is a good practice. It works well. But things are changing in the SEO world.
1. Exact Match
In the old days, if you wanted to rank for something, your tactic was very simple. If your target keyword was Bing cherries, you just tried to get as many exact match anchor text that said Bing cherries as possible to your website. Those of you who have been practicing SEO for a long time noticed something about a year and a half ago or so, that this method did not work as well as it used to. If you got too many exact match anchor texts, it could actually hurt you. That's why you say, that's such a 2009 tactic.
Now with the Google Panda update, we're talking about a whole other realm of ranking signals, such as engagement metrics, social signals, but we don't want to forget these link signals. Even if exact match isn't the end all be all, there is still a lot of information that Google and other search engines are getting from these link signals, and that's what we want to talk about today.
2. Partial Match
Now, one of the most overlooked types of anchor text links is the partial match, and I am in love with partial match. I really quit going for these a long time ago. Now it is all about partial match. People sort of misunderstand what partial match is. The technical definition of partial match is any anchor text that contains at least one of your keyword phrases. So, if your keyword phrase was Bing cherries, these would all count as partial match anchor texts: Bing are the best cherries; I love cherries; Bing is awesome. Yeah, it's probably not what they are talking about, but it is still technically partial match anchor text.
If you are a fan of the 2011 Ranking Factors that SEOmoz did - we'll link to it in the text below - we took a look, one of the factors we looked at was the power of partial match anchor text versus exact match anchor text. Now, in general, if you look at the root domain metrics, the correlation between the number of exact match anchor text was 0.17. All things being equal, the power of partial match anchor text was 0.25. Significantly more power and more correlation between the number of partial match anchor text and exact match anchor text. So, all things being equal, it seems like people rank higher, just a little bit, if they have more partial match as opposed to these exact match that everybody is always going for.
This is how I'd like to explain it. If you give me a choice, if you could say I could have any 300 links I want but they have to be 300 partial match anchor text or 300 exact match anchor text, a lot of webmasters would go for this thinking it is the best policy. Statistically though, this is your best choice. This is going to contain some of your exact matches, but you're going to have such a bigger broad tail, long tail queries that you can rank for. You're going to get more traffic. You're going to rank better for your targeted keywords, and this method is future proof. As Google deemphasizes these exact matches, this is going to take you forward in the long run. Those links are going to have a lot longer long-term value, and it is just going to give you a better natural looking link profile.
3. Context, Placement and Relevance
Other link signals, how do you make these links count? If you're not getting the exact match anchor text, what are other context signals that Google could be looking at? Well, first of all, they are going to be looking at the on-page signals of the page that's giving you the link. If you are trying to rank for Bing cherries, you want the title tag of that page to be cherries. There is an article Rand wrote a couple years ago, "The Perfectly Optimized Page." All those on page signals, those are what you want on the page linking to you - the title tag, the H1 headers, keyword usage, alt text in the photo. Those are all signals to Google that this page is about Bing cherries. It's linking to you. You're more likely to interpret that as this link is about Bing cherries.
Context, Google is getting increasingly more sophisticated at being able to do block analysis and determine what the page is about. So, if you have a section of ads, Google can kind of tell that is a section of ads. If you have a link in that section of ads, probably not going to count for very much. Same on the sidebar. If you have a link about Bing cherries on a page about monkeys and it is hidden in this link of text, well, the context and the placement of that link, Google says that's probably not about cherries. It looks kind of like a paid ad, and that's not going to count for very much. So, context, on page signals, all those traditional on page optimization, those things that you would want on your own page, you want to look for from the link.
4. The Future of Link Signals
Google is spending a lot of money to learn how to understand pages, to learn context. The days of the dumb search engine are kind of leaving us behind. Google is getting better and better at figuring out what these pages are about. If you read Google patents, which a lot of us like to do, SEO by the Sea is a great blog to read, they're seeing patents such as sentiment analysis, such as in online reviews. Google will actually try to figure out if that review is a positive review or a negative review. So, even if you get the link, if there are words around it like Joe's Pizza sucks, well that might not be, in the future, as good as link as Joe's Pizza is awesome. Now, this is all theory. We don't have the data and the facts to back this up, but the patents tell us this is where the future is going. Author profiling, the author tags that Google is using, they might be asking is this person an authority? If Rand Fishkin links to you with anchor text about SEO, Google may in the future decide Rand Fishkin is an expert about SEO. That link is so much more important than Joe Schmoe SEO because they know his author profile.
In the end, this system was easy to game. Exact match profiles, very easy to game. That's why it went away. In the future, it is much harder to game. Search engines are becoming sophisticatedly more like human beings. So, when we look at these pages, we have to be human as SEOs. We have to judge these pages like a human. We have to write them like a human. We have to link like a human. The higher quality you do that, the longer your strategy is going to work and anchor text, linking signals, they're all going to work for you.
That's all. Thank you very much.
Video transcription by Speechpad.com
Bonus - A Final Note
Different SEOs hold widely varying opinions as to how much exact match anchor text is "too much." Estimates range between 25-80%. I don't believe there is any perfect ratio, as other factors such as source, context and authority play significant roles. While there certainly needs to be more study in this area, I found the following articles interesting:
- Are We Over Engineering the Link Graph?
- Backing Up The Brand – Are Over Optimised Link Profiles A Barrier To Top 5 Rankings?
- How to Unnaturally Naturally Vary Your Anchor Text
As always, I'm interested in your thoughts and recommendations about "perfecting" anchor text.
When you say "partial", what do you mean?
Here are examples - which ones are best? What is the average situation on the web? What should the best practice be for link builders?
For [exact match anchor text]:
1. [exact match anchor text] <--- the exact term
2. [exact match anchor] <--- end-truncated term
3. [match anchor text] <--- beginning-truncated term
4. [exact match anchor text articles] <--- term with extra word(s) appended
5. [anchor] <--- individual word
6. [foo.com] <--- the domain
7. [click here] <--- unrelated text
Is a good rule of thumb, 50% of your links with approach #1, and 7% with each of the others?
SEOMoz's take on what the right balance is would be very interesting - particularly whether 3, 4,5,6, and 7 are worth bothering with at all. I think getting a scientific answer on this based on the data would be a ton of work, but even "clinical" data from practitioners is lacking - any thoughts at all on this would be great.
I would suspect all of the above are valuable especially with variations on #4 [anchor text with exact matches] [links with exact text matches] [exact vs partial anchor text matching] etc. I don't know what the balance is but I would suspect that >50 on #1 looks unnatural, and >50 on everything else looks really natural but might not do you much good for the keywords. Agreed that data would be nice but is probably fairly difficult to come by.
It's my opinion that you just need to acquire links. I've had success in not really thinking about the anchor text as long as it's relevant to and from where I'm linking. I've had multiple sentences as anchor text, one word, signs, images, etc.
If you're looking for a formula to base your linkbuilding on, I'd say 20% exact match, 30% partial match 30% no match and 20% images
Keep in mind, there isn no "rule of thumb". What works for one niche probably won't work for another.
This is not an "official" SEOmoz position, but I would say a large, natural link profile would contain all of these and more. My favorite anchor text are the ones not talked about here: The contextual near match (I made that term up) Let me give you an example. If my keyword phrase is "Best Car Insurance Dallas" then a great anchor text would be "Good Auto Coverage Texas" Actually, I'd like to have one of my keywords in there, so perhaps "Good Auto Insurance in Texas" would be a better fit. It's partial match (or not) but the words are conceptually similar to my desired anchor, and it's going to help me rank.
This explanation gave me the lightbulb moment.. Always enjoyed WBF but this explanation really made this one resonate with me.
Thanks
Agreed. I think the value of LSI keywords (words linked through semantics) will play an even larger role in the future. If you haven't already, I think it's a wise strategy to start incorporating these types of anchor text in your linkbuilding portfolio. Build not just for the present but for the future, as well.
I agree Cyrus and think that your "contextual near match" will become more influential as Google gets smarter at interpreting language. I've noticed I've ranked for some terms that do not feature on page or in back links anywhere.
Cyrus, thanks you! I hope all this will come true as soon as possible. I'm sick of getting superspammy results, lanidng on pointless "wirtten for robots" pages and waste valuable time trying to find something useful.
R.I.P. spammers :)
P.S: Great video, but next time try not to stay in the middle of the board most of the time ;) I know it took some time until Rand can do it properly...
Great video Cyrus. I think (hope) this is already happening. The best links we've built in terms of value lately have been 'nofollow' blog comments with employee names (no keyword) and guest blogs with our company name linked (and a keyword in the vicinity).
I agree with Debliz R.I.P Spammers.
R.I.P. Spammers indeed!
I've noticed the same thing with nofollow blog comments in a few situations. Nofollow doesn't necessarily mean useless. I think they will be a big part of how the search engines look at your overall link profile as they move to valuing a more natural profile.
Agree. I had great results that way, too, for maybe a years or so.
Mike, same here with the nofollowed links from blog comments. I'm noticing a positive impact when using just my name, not some keyword (kinda stupid mistake done by many). My guess is that it is actually natural when someone puts his/her name... how can someone be named "SEO Services" :D. I won't reply to someone with such name - I wanna reply to real human > real names please :)
Great to see the exact match anchor text filters covered here. When I did back in May 2010 some people still considered it FUD:
https://seo2.0.onreact.com/google-filters-exact-match-anchor-text-links-are-the-new-meta-keywords
IMHO every simple SEO technique that works too well is bound to get curbed in the near future. Exact match anchor texts have been working too well for too long.
The tricky part is to make sure the exact anchor is used enough to get ranked for the target phrases - while not overusing it, so its not discounted or have a filter/ negative effect.
Great video! I hope that we move into the future soon - I'm still seeing quite a lot of local searches where the top result has several hundred exact phrase matches, using blogspam links, and they're beating out their competition every single time. Frustrating when you tell your clients not to cheat.
Agree with Dana - Super explanation! And it is hard to tell clients not to cheat...
We just completed an audit of a site participating in exact-match link wheels. They know it's not where they should be putting their energy, but it's working. Yes, their DA is very low considering the massive # of links.
Spammer beware, what works now may, and probably will not, work in the future!
In addition to partial match, we should keep in mind that a sprinkling of anchor text with "click here" and "read more" helps to "naturalize" one's link profile.
this is awesome. :) Very powerful stuff.
Hey Cyrus! Great WF!
I'd like to share some data we have on this subject. Some projects we are working (in US) seems to show us a pattern. Every time we get many exact match anchor text backlinks our pages loose rankings. It does not matter the source, I mean, the Domain Authority. Google seems to be understanding when you want to "game" them.
Now, our tactic is to merge a little bit of exact match with partial match and, if is possible, some brand links. It is harder to do, but is something that is working for us.
Best,
Fabio
Hey Fabio!
It's frustrating, right? You work hard to get that link, then your rankings go down! This started happening to me about a year ago. At that point, I stopped asking for exact match anchor text altogether. These days I'm much more concerned about placement on the page and context.
Again, that's vexing because it isn't as though all exact match anchor text is gaming at all... I mentioned this in an earllier comment: many of our dealer partners use product category terms as anchors (such as "microphones" with a URL pointing to a specific model of microphone). We of course want to rank for these terms, but it's an organic usage of exact anchor text on the part of these retailers. It sounds like there's evidence we could be penalized for no good reason... I'd be hesitant to ask dealers not to be too exact, you know what I mean?
Great job, Cyrus, one of the best WBFs I've ever watched!
I was delighted when I saw it as the topic as for a while now I've been having this argument with other SEOs, who believe that only concentrating on 2-3 EMAT keywords is the only way to go. Nonsense! You summed it when you said a mixture is more "natural" - I find it hardly likely that everyone in the world ever will know to link to your example as "bing cherries" and nothing else.
Of course, there's no harm in just varying it slightly. If my main keyword is "[location] [keyword]" (e.g. "widgets cardiff") then there's plenty of ways to vary it, if only slightly: "widgets in cardiff," "widget cardiff," "cardiff widgets," "cardiff widget company," etc. That way you're not varying it too much but it still looks a lot more natual than concentrating on just one version and leaving it at that.
Great WBF. I think there’s a strong possibility that a lot of what you’re saying will be true in the future. But in terms of the current state of search, I’d have to respectfully disagree on a few points.
1.) I still think exact match anchor text is the strongest ranking factor, particularly in the sense that it can overcome other weaknesses in a site’s SEO profile.
2. I definitely think that partial match anchor text gets value and makes a link profile look more natural. One thing I do think is interesting is that, if memory serves me correct, in Rand’s SERP analysis spreadsheet from about a year ago, he heavily weighted exact match over partial match. I can’t find the spreadsheet, but if anyone has the exact numbers I’d be interested to see what they were. I understand that SEO is always changing, but I don’t know if it’s changed that much…
3. I think it will be a while until Google heavily weights sentiment analysis in regards to links. Why? Because it would be so easy to burn a competitor. Google can control what people say on their review network with logins, IPs, etc, but they can’t control (or discredit) what people say on other websites. Plus, there’s no real balance in existence because people love to hate on companies, but rarely compliment them while linking to them, e.g. compare the # of “these are scam companies” sites to “these are the most ethical companies” sites. I’m not saying that they won’t be able to do it in the future, but I think at this point it’s just too far fetched…especially when they’re still crediting links that are in paragraphs of complete gibberish from article spinners.
Finally, I couldn’t help but think of the various “High PR Link Networks” after watching the video, because they work remarkably well (when the person using them isn’t greedy or stupid), yet they’re counter to all of the ideas put forth here. Again, I agree with almost all of what you’re saying in terms of likely factors in the future (and maybe weak factors now), but for now, if I have a opportunity to legitimately get an exact match link, I’ll be taking it.
Great video, Cyrus.
Intuition has certainly suggested that Google would come to deaden the value of exact match anchor text. As you mentioned, the initial steps have been taken (with the negative effects of a link with identical exact match anchor text overpopulating the web). It's only a matter of time before further steps are taken to promote "natural" linking.
One of the benefits of partial match anchor text is that it allows you to target your keyword phrase, while also diversifying your long-tail profile. Given some of the recent posts on capturing the long-tail realm of search, I'd say that this is a promising coincidence.
It's all about appearing natural. If your site only has links with exact match anchortext it doesn't seem natural.
Atleast thats how it should be, and probably will be. Adobe is still a great example of a site ranking with lots of exact match links. Try doing a seach for "click here" :)
natural is the key! i now put everything I do through the "is it natural" test. i didnt use to. hopefully this will futureproof some sites :D
Excellent article, very insightful!
For once, my inabililty to follow exact instructions -- or to be a little wordy in my writing -- will pay off!
I've always had to force myself to stick to "just" my keywords when forming anchor text links. Six times out of 10, the writer in me has to put a bit more meat on those anchor text "bones." I like to put things in some kind of context -- at least make it like a 4- or 5-word phrase that tells what's really going on here.
That, and a penchant to try to fit in a second, related keyword...
Something's been working fairly well for my pages. Had no idea this was possibly one of the factors.
I +1'd this. :)
Halleluja! Making short cut, SEO it's going more and more like shoot be, totaly natural and relevant to the value of pages. This is good! Good job Cyrus:) I like very much yours WBF. Have nice weekend.
Hi Cyrus,
Great and very very helpful.
Do you think the context of the link where exact match anchor text is used is considered by Google? For example exact match anchor text in a well written article with lots of other relevant keywords, vs exact match in a reference or signature on a blog comment.
Obviously the first link is better, but what I'm trying to ask is in your opinion will Google be devaluing exact match from all sources or more likely to focus on specific areas. Exact match feels a lot more natural in certain areas, but do you think Google also evaluate this? So previously you spoke about % of exact match and it could be that 50% is fine for contextual links, but only 10% for other methods.
We do a lot of linkbuilding with a lot of success using a mix of exact & partial match in articles, and then domain links via a whole host of other methods. We rarely though do exact match via these other methods such as blog comments & competition.
Alarm bells just started ringing that maybe this needs to be revised so we have a lower concentration of exact match on articles?
Would love to help with any research in this area as we would be happy to do some testing as part of a group.
Many thanks
@Cyrus Shepard
I agree with your partial match anchor text theory. I have quite different experirnce with it. Dofollow or Nofollow text links were worked in 2009. But, now on it's quite out dated or be out dated. Dofollow links will suppose to help us in page rank but Nofollow links are quite important.
I have done one experiement with my website. I have built more Nofollow partial and exact anchor links for my website rather than dofollow links. But, it's work and getting good result.
Keywords of external websites are more important when we are going to develop link over there. As you said Google suppose to know about page like "Rand is good SEO..." So, How Google suppose to know about it?
I have guess on it. Google webmaster tools have one section like Keywords and that's indicate nature of website. Google may be use this section more in future to indicate taste of website.
If I am owner of video converter website and develop links with same industry so It will work more.
The section (Keywords) of Google webmaster tools describe following statement at top.
Below are the most common keywords Google found when crawling your site. These should reflect the subject matter of your site.
Google will include this matter in external links structure and understanding of value. What you think about it?
This reminds a lot of some of the data that's been coming out about follow/nofollow. It's like there's two competing factors at work here... The first is how many links you have pointing towards you with your keywords (or in the other case, without "nofollow"). The second is how natural your overall profile looks based on the proportion of those links with non-exact-keyword links (or with "nofollow" links). On the one hand, having all exact match keywords gives you more weight in the first, raw factor, but it makes you look unnatural and takes away from the second factor. If a bunch of those links changed to partial matches or even non-matches, you might lose the 'positive' effects of the first factor, but the 'negative' drawback from the second factor would also be reduced and you might come out ahead - just like some of the data has been suggesting for sites with all 'follow' links.
Thanks for sharing :D and a great video...I really like your posts
I think this is a big wake up call to look beyond the search engines when trying to build traffic/audience. We know we had to diversify long ago, but now it's 100% clear. Instead of trying to keep up with the "game," why not build content in a way you believe in. Write a short article, write a long article. Include direct match, don't include direct match. Write from the heart. Don't do it for the engines, do it for you. Assuming the engines are getting smarter, you'll eventually be rewarded for being yourself.
Interesting, things have been changing so quickly and I've beenw wondering about it based on some of the research I've been doing on terms.
However, I'd be interested seeing some lab analysis on this and some numbers as you move forward.
Loved the concise summary. :-)
I don't have anything to add because you nailed it. Awesome WBF Cyrus.
Love this WBF. Nice job Cyrus. I completely agree that Google is becoming more advanced in how they value links. And I think most seo's have run into these oop (over optimization penatlies) buy getting too many exact match links. Bravo to you guys for being on the cutting edge with these ranking factors.
Thanks greenbergb. I should note that the Ranking Factors for this WBF quoted Domain Level Link Metrics. When looking at links pointing to a particular page, the metrics are actually much tighter, .25 correlation between number of root domains linking with partial match and .24 for domains linking with exact match. The data suggests that a broad and diverse link profile pointing to your entire domain, with a smaller mix of focused exact match anchor text at the page level, seems to be the best policy.
I especially like that efforts are being made to make changes to google to make it better understand content and the quality of content. In the end gaming google will require producing really good quality content that provides value to the readers. So those who are willing to work hard to get results where they previously would have been mischeivious will just be working hard to provide value! haha
I've found that 'brand + keyword' anchor text has been by far the most effective in varying anchor text. It is more likely to be a unique anchor text not found elsewhere on the web and somewhat futureproof.
It makes sense for search engines to put more value on branded links as they are more likely to be earnt editorially rather than gamed. I think that branded links will carry more weight in the future without any inclusion of keywords in the anchor. The other metrics on the page (such as those mentioned in the video) will provide the relevance of the link.
Hi Gloyns,
I agree and I think it's becoming more important to include brand name as well as mixing exact match/non-brand partial match.
I've seen a few sites drop from page 1 to betweem pages 5 and 10 over the last few months and when you look at their link profiles in OSE, you often see that the first occurrence of a brand inclusive anchor is not in the top 10 or even 20 in the list of anchors.
If you have 60 exact match anchors for KW1, 50 for KW2, 40 for KW3 and only 1 for your business name, a 3 year old can tell you're a fake so Google certainly can and is going to discount a load of those and maybe even go further than that.
I've been interested in a site in the UK that ranks number 1 for an extremely competitive term. Out of 274 linking domains, only 1 (yes 1), is an exact match anchor. 27 are long tail keyword inclusive anchors. Most of the rest are purely brand or brand inclusive anchors.
As Google gets better at working out relevance from other factors, I think anchor text will become less important.
I'm hoping a relevant presence of exact match anchor text will prevent any over-optimization penalties... For manufacturer brands, on retail and distributor sites a specific product link for a broader product category is common, pointing to the product's product page/spec sheet. (eg, "Speakers" pointing at the model of speaker they are touting for a promotion).
It's all about appearing natural. If your site only has links with exact match anchortext it doesn't seem natural.
Good one, Cyrus!
I feel like people always asking for exact match anchor text are the same people as offering a link with PR3. Not a very sophisticated understanding of the SEO development the lasts couple of years.
Thanks for helping enlighten us all!
Thomas
Thanks Cyrus,
Another great Whiteboard Friday and some key points in there that it seems some people might have been missing.
I have to say I love your gentle way of explaining that a well optimized page is a much more valuable link source. Maybe some light bulbs might come on with that for some people. Actually, this particular point is one that I think should be more widely talked about in places where the general public might see it. Then perhaps some of the site owners out there who are paying for poor link building practices might start applying some real pressure for better standards in that area.
Your explanation of "partial match anchor text" is quite helpful too. I wonder if there is any data around that indicates whether the order of partial match makes a difference? For example - Term = bing cherries Anchor = the best cherries are from Bing. I would be interested to know if that has been analyzed at all.
Thanks again for another excellent post - my Whiteboard Friday addiction sated for another week! :)
Sha
The thing I love about SEO is that it's always evolving and the SEO's who stay on top of their game stay ahead of the curve. If you are one of those people who are always trying to game the system, you are most likely not staying up to date or watching Whiteboard Friday. Nice job Cyrus!
Amen!
Amazing explanation, I think most of the SEOs are doing same pattern of exact match of anchor text. Very less are considering this important factor which called partial match. All the results are showing that partial match are more effective in compare to exact match and by seeing current condition, I can say that, in coming days, the ratio of partial match will go higher than exact match.
Cyrus Fantastic Post, Choosing the right keywords is always prior to any website. As you said partial match i think it is equal to broad match. "Content,placement and relavance" Great point and my favourite also. Something always keeps happening to your online business that seems worthy of turning into some interesting content.
Well optimized page is added advantage for us and we have to check our website regularly basis for crawlabilty and various errors to having a successful, well optimized site. Thanks for this wonderful article.
-Hiren
LOVED this Cyrus! I love the search engine moves toward becoming more human and focusing more on content rather than exact matches. It actually makes it a lot easier to get useful links! It's great to have more room to play with instead of trying to force exact anchor text links out of other sites.
Great post Cyrus. The partial match analysis was really eye opening for us when it was published and its been working.
I think there is a lot more to come out of the relationship between Author markup and authority and social signals. A little controversial but my view is this could become a core algo rank factor in the years to come, replacing link trust...
I'm penning a blog on this as I speak.
Thoughts?
I definitely think some sort of analysis is necessary - yes, it certainly makes sense that too much exact match may often be unnatural, or those links aren't as meaningful as partial match links that real people have come up with. However, I really think as with all things SEO, some sort of test should be done...
I think way too many rely to heavy on exact match terms, sure it is working for alot of niches and I can see it happening for a while more especially in search markets which are developing.
But in some really big niches you see big brands dominating serps and they do not rely on EMD domains or links which are driven from these sources in a natural sense.
Interesting times ahead but =)
Nice WBF. I think your ideas are right on. Too many exact match links are not going to throw up a flag.
This is something I've been thinking about for a while now. It's all about looking natural. Along with anchor text the other things I'd consider are the ratio of followed vs. nofollowed links and proportion of text links to image links.
I think a lot of SEOs have been savvy to this for a while, I definately notice that using partial match along with exact match is much more effectivce than exact match only.
It's great to see some data showing that exact match anchors are not the be all and end all. I've long supported the idea that mixing it up is important for a natural and authentic link profile, but when you see 100% exact match = position 1 on Google it is hard to argue with. Thanks!
I agree that it's frustrating but these sites may get more traffic than others for one single keyword but not get as much traffic overall as other sites with more natural link profiles.
Haaaa! That's a great WBF. Thanks for that Cyrus. That's exactly what I was actually doing more and more. this post confirm's me that it was not a bad idea! :) So I guess I'll lead this way without any fear from now on.
So glad you brought this topic more center stage. It may take a while to shake some people from the exact match idea, but now I can give people the link to this video - always good have to have supporting documentation when you're advising people, thanks!
Really great video and explanation! thanks.
I think that every practice in seo as in other disciplines and also in life are always better if they are performed mixing several thoughts and techniques.
thanks again!
Great post, we have seen the same patterns with 10/20 position penalties applied to sitewide/blogroll exact match inbound links with competitor websites. I have also seen big boosts in some localised searches for sites with extremely small link footprints - link clean ups could well become increasingly popular.
Great post! It was a good read and a great source of information... Thanks for sharing...
Hi Cyrus, great job.
We use different match anchor and we have good results.
2/6 (~30%) are different for example:voip = 4extra voip = 1telefonia voip = 1We have test obove one hundred domains.
Hi Cyrus, love your video. We always watch this seomoz videos. Just wondering what color is your t-shirt in this video. Could you tell me. My co-workers and friends are really curious. Thanks.
Sort of an acid-washed gray, I would say.
Thanks alot for answering.
Very interesting post & video Cyrus.
Great explanation with screen cast. It is very help full to practically understanding.
Thanks For Sharing
I would pick exact keyword matches. All of them. Then generate my own varied keywords. :)
Seems Google is speeding up things. I do a lot of testing and since a few weeks, rankings went down significantly for keywords I had linked with only one and the same anchor text. Some dropped from page 1 to page 2, but some even disappeared completely.
Also, that URL ranked for other keywords for which I had not done any link building and these are still in the same position!
Furthermore, brand new domains for which I use varied anchor text, seem to rank better and faster than before.
Thank you very much for clearly explaining the direction you feel optimizing is going, and I really liked the partial match. It really helps me to understand results that I see from my analysis tools. Great post, can't wait to check out the other links.
Thank you for clarify this issue :)
How many people took notice of this before penguin hit? =]
Good WBF.
What i think is that a lot of websites have great positions even if their link profil is full of exact match anchor text. These websites are not "punish" by google maybe because those links are olds ones. Then Google is more clever than in the past on the analysis of link-spam but if a website already has exact match anchor text it wont be blamed by google if the recent links seems natural and especially if pages that received that links are shared on social networks that reduces the spam effect .
Another point is that to me, if you use exact anchor text on a sidebar you wont be blamed by google because on a sidebar you can't add a long text so to link a website webmasters use short links.
I see a lot of top ranking sites with a heavy ratio of exact match anchor text. One of the reasons I believe they get away with it though, is that they are brands, or are "seen as brands" by Google.
Great post and video. The evolution of SEO is bringing us closer and closer to natural link building. The longevity of a link strategy must focus on naturally gained external links and partial match anchor text acts as a strong signal to Google. As Google evolves its algorithm exact match anchor text must be devalued so that Google continues to deliver a high quality experience for its users.
Matt
The video is providing me the great knowledge about keyword Google algorithm for future perspect. Nice video @Cyrus...
Excellent video, thanks a lot.
Does this mean you should avoid all exact match anchor text or is their a certain ratio that we should follow?
Diversity is key. No need to avoid exact match.
Someone mentioned "Exact match anchor ratio is the tricky part".
Actually it's a lot trickier than you imagine because there is no standard ratio. It varies between industry, market, even individual phrase. You have to examine the top ranking sites for your target keyword, and see what ratios are working for them.
I just Love WBF, when are you coming to a "theater near me".
Mike
How many people think of the long term kind of linkbuilding, where you try to rank for long tail keywords? You make the keyword extreme specific, but there won't be a lot of links, as the search term is that specific.
It's not exactly about having the exact same anchor, but just about anchors in general. :)
Thanks for the excellent video, Cyrus. It is scary, though, thinking that Google's going to start judging sentiment and make value judgements on posts around the internet...
To me the most intriguing part of the most was when Cyrus said that the 300 partial match as opposed to the 300 exact match would be future proof. "As Google de-emphasizes these exact matches" - think about that. De-emphasizing the exact matches to put more emphasis on the partial, more human sounding matches.
Great post Cyrus!! I was saying to myself as the video began that exact phrase link is easy to game and when I heard that in you wrap up I cracked up! lol It seems that the Partial Match links are really better than the traditional exact matching. I really liked your breakdown of page content positioning too! I agree that Google differentiates paid ad areas and gives less credit to them.Thanks for a great WBF!
There is definite value in partial match links. The additional words used in the anchor text help your site surface for longer tail keywords that contain variants of your desired keyword.
Very interesting post, thanks.
Does this apply only to external linkbuilding or has this got implications for internal linking practices aswell?
I'm thinking particularly about the usefulness of resolving keyword cannibalisation issues with exact match internal links
I love this; partial matches do add an element of credibility for being "natural" as opposed to a stampede of exact matches. It's also something to keep in mind when linking to other sources from a company blog. I'll be sure to keep this in mind when discussing SEO with clients who think of it as an exact science.
Relying too heavily on exact match anchor text can be very dangerous. First off, it limits what kind of search queries your site will rank for. Everyone does not search for the same thing the same way! You are essentially limiting who can find your site. Secondly. using the same anchor text over and over can get very spammy looking. I know a lot of DIY site owners make this mistake, not intending any "evil" or to manipulate the search engines, but it's an easy enough thing to fix!
Thanks for the post, Cyrus. I've long thought that people are using way too much exact match anchor text. We're probably a few updates away from many of these kinds of links becoming a liability more than a benefit.
I am curious if anyone could expound on the partial match. For example if I wanted to rank well for "wood shelf" could I get a link that said "quality wood shelf" and that would count as a partial match? Or does it need to be more than just one extra word that is linked?
Wether or not that meets the definitition of "partial match" is up for debate, but in the end, "quality wood shelf" would make great anchor text one way or another.
Cheers!
You could definitlly target that tearm, but also try to get terms like "strong wood shelves"(plural) and "my favorite wood shelf company" ... as well.
Great post and video Cyrus. It is very helpfull great explanation Thanks for share tips.........:)
great WBF as always! I'm doing a lot of partial match, and I think it's great because it is more natural for the reader, and it's even more simple to find a way to put a link in this way.
Variety is the key.
I think these are exciting times for being a SEO. Those spammy results days are over, at least I am counting .. Too many black hat seo out there tryng to take a short cuts. Good for Google to give us better and better results.
Looking forward to seeing partial match going more and more into practise in the near future.
I don't think they're over yet, but I'm defintely counting down the days too. I think the "SEO of the future" will revolve more around how advantageously he/she can use a piece of content. That's something that a spammer will never be able to do.
Great and very interesting screencast. By the way, I have a doubt: I would like to know if anchors links on the same web like this:
<A href="#xxx">Anchor_text</A> ...more document... <A name="xxx">No_text_here</A>
Can this affect to SEO? Are those links giving PageRank? A those anchors useful? Anyone can help?
Juafrio, this is a deceptively good question! A page won't pass PageRank to itself. We've done a lot of experiments with page to page named anchors, but not on-page anchors. My guess is, it is possible the engines use these named anchors for contextual signals, but the effect is likely minimal.
Thanks for your response Cyrus. So, I suppose that if I have four links on my web, and 3 of them are to the same web (anchor links), on the other link I'm passing almost the 99% of my page rank, isn't it? Right know, what I use on anchor links is . Do you think this is a good measure?
Very very very nice information!Exact match anchor text still works for the highly competitive keywords or industry leading key terms but the point is notable that partial match anchor text having better correlation!Perhaps its human world...Google have to be more natural!
Thank you, great explanation. I do agree, exact match anchor text used to have more value but now it’s different, because it’s more kind of SEO thing. That’s why now search engines; especially Google has set less value to exact anchor text links.
Great video, Cyrus. It surprises me a little that there are still some SEOs out there who go specifically for the exact match. I would have thought the "varied, natural looking profile" ethos would have reached most people by now!
Just as we have seen with over optimising on-page elements doing more harm than good the same can now be seen with off-page elements.
I'd even go as far to say that completely irrelevant anchor text can help balance the equation. A 'click here' or 'read more' will help keep things looking natural.
And don't forget to get your brand in there as well...
Aaaaand finally after a week of tons of work and late nights I can catch up on seoMoz! (at 1:45am...).
Thanks for this, it just helps to reinforce what I'm thinking on link strategy and also when clients come to me wanting exact match, that I can easily explain why other link text can even be better.
Nice and concise - great!
Hey Cyrus, thanks for one of the better WBF videos I've seen in a while.
What are your thoughts on stuffing in the anchor text? i.e. Joes Pizza, Calazones, Pasta, Spaghetti, Italian dinner, buffet in Dallas, TX - Plano, TX - Richardson, TX - Irving, TX???
It's obviously spammy as hell but I've seen it work pretty efficiently.
I'm guessing since your video is more about "future-proofing" you'll advise against it but, I don't see Google being intuitive enough to devalue a link like that for a long time.Maybe I'm underestimating G but there are spam tactics that work today that no one would have thought would still work in 2011.
Sure they can. Sentiment Analysis is a fairly standard practice. APIs like the Alchemy API allow you to do it right now; in fact I've used it in tools that I've built myself. Sites like SocialMention are doing it. The almighty Google could easily add sentiment analysis to its arsenal.
I'll save some time by agreeing with iPullRank, but also say it depends on the competitive environment and other linking factors. Sometimes you'll see this tactic appear to work, other times not. In the end, I'd recommend against it
I am not sure they will need to eliminate a link like your example through sentiment analysis anyway.
The fact is the sites with a lot of juice won't have links like your example and the spammy ones will. Analysis Done.
My example would be YELP or URBAN SPOON vs. the Swamp Donkey watering hole that allows that link to stick around.
I am not sure they will need to eliminate a link like your example through sentiment analysis anyway.
The fact is the sites with a lot of juice won't have links like your example and the spammy ones will. Analysis Done.
My example would be YELP or URBAN SPOON vs. the Swamp Donkey watering hole that allows that link to stick around.
The only thing is yes the ranking game is changing, but what about sites that used exact matches 5-6 years ago and now those links have been up forever and they still count...apparently. Would any of the changes with rankings actually effect those old standings? It doesn't seem so and in the mean time the black hat community is still very large and working with exact matches and many of them still say they get results, but I do agree the way search engines think are changing, but I'm not sure it's necessarily changing that many rankings. In some cases I wish it would, but some of them have just been in the SERPS so long that it seems that time seems to still be a large indicator into ranking.
Great polo! What's the brand? Link to where i can buy it would be appreciated! :)
Thanks :)
CYRUS- Nice Job +1 - Your my new WBFF
Even with these movements on the search engines, SEO companies will still be around but have to expand their services into other areas than being the companies that buy exact text anchor links.
Interesting debate. No question over cooking it with exact match anchors is a bad tactic - it is unnatural of course. Presume if you are SEO'ing an EMD though you will not be affected?
However, I suspect old habits will die hard, anchor text is one of the most important ranking factors, or has been historically we don't know how long this will last, given what you have said in the video.
One thing I would say finally - if you get the chance of a big, powerful link who doesn't resort to an exact match anchor?
Hi babyjane,
In reply to your comment about SEO'ing an EMD, I think that must be one of the best reasons for investing in an EMD. I think it's an effective insurance policy against penalties. I don't mean because it will get you more keyword back links but perhaps more importantly those that you do get will be bomb proof when subjected to any kind of authenticity test.
Surely it would be inconceivable that one might get an OOP penalty for having 100% exact match anchors if they match your domain? To take a specific example, how many links to SEOmoz using the anchor text SEOmoz (or close variants) would it take to get an OOP?
Has anybody experienced an OOP for keywords that are an exact match for the domain or even a partial match for the domain?
Best strategy for short and long term results is to use a variety of anchor texts so appears natural : including site name, URL, brand name, click here, visit us and variations of keywords, phrase, exact and broad as well as short and long tail.
As the search engines get more advanced, link profile will look natural and sites should continue to rank well. However in the short term, have found their are still sites with 1000's of exact match anchor texts, which continue to hold Top 5 positions on Google, a flaw in the algorithm which will get better in time.
I totally think that Search Engines will be considering page context to a greater degree in the future. I think that's what Schema.org will do for them. I don't think they are anywhere near being able to determine page context at all at this moment though.
In the mean time, take what you can get in the way of anchor text - even if its just the companies name that they already rank number one for. Exact, Partial or at least in the thematic neighborhood is the way to go at this point.
Ok, so when I wateched this video (and I'd love some feedback) the first thing I thought of was, "how should we manage scalable link building strategies?"
For example, should infographics, and embedable badges still use anchor text? If I get 25 sites who embed my infographic on their sites, and all 25 of them have the same exact match anchor text, is that good or bad? And, if we should still put anchor text in an embedable image/badge, should we offer multiple versions of anchortext?
Truth be told, I vary the anchor text in my embedable infographics every couple of days after I first release them. That said, with both infogralphics and embeddable widgets, it seems you need a lot of distribution these days to make a significant impact on your rankings for a particular term. In the future, I might experiment with placing my attribution link at the top of the infographic, instead of the bottom, and seeing if that makes a difference.
Superb Cyrus! :)
Although I lost ht headphones somewhere so I am unable to go with the video but thanks for the Transcription… its works! ;)
Ok, I do agree with the partial match domain names also I think natural anchors works well (from natural I simply means un-optimized anchor text like ‘WBF by Cyrus is awesome!’) this might not even the partial match anchor but this works fine… (As per my experiments)
Although I believe that exact match anchor links are not completely dead but obviously if you have 1000 links pointing to you website with the same anchor text then it’s easy to believe that the link profile is not natural… best practice is to go with the mix of exact match and partial match anchor text!
I love it! *squeals like a nerdy school girl* I started doing this a little while ago and saw it was working. Thanks for backing up my efforts! :) Such a good explaination, too. I may have to lock my bosses into a room with this video so they will have no choice but to watch and learn!
I think exact match only works for internal linking and as for external linking, only the links that are coming from highly trusted sources such as CNN.
Oh yah did I say another great post?
Great explanation. Thanks for tips.
Great WBF and good job Cyrus. :-)
Another great WBF. I've argued for partial matches for quite a while and it's nice to have material like this to back it up.
Great article, thanx for that! I totaly agree! Sam
Exact match anchor ratio is the tricky part. I think everyone would agree that you need a certain amount of exact match anchor text but what is the optimal ratio? I think Cyrus states that the experts think it should you should have between 28%-80% exact match anchor text. Wow, there's a huge disparity.
Currently we've advised our link builder that we want 1 in 4 links to have exact match anchor text and these links should be from the higher quality sources. The jury is still out on how well this is working.
I think you're dead on here. Ratio is super important to prevent overoptimization. In the case that you get an overoptimzation penality (it's really more of a filter), then you can usually have it lifted by creating more anchor text diversity.