Should I still use exact keyword targeted anchors in my backlink campaigns?
This question keeps coming up and I noticed Tracey posted about this recently. see Should you vary your anchor text?
A couple of years ago we all knew that you could get ranked well and fairly fast by simply generating a lot of backlinks that contained the keywords you were trying to rank for. I mentioned at the time that you should still follow a natural link profile because G would and has gotten better at weeding out sites that display a link profile consisting of unnatural patterns such as a predominant amount of “keyword targeted” links and a short supply of “brand” links such as your URL, your name, product etc.
To put it simply your link profile should have a multitude of anchors in your backlinks and they should point to a wide range of your posts. Check any authority site and you will see a similar link profile – a wide variety of backlinks using a wide variety of anchors and coming from a wide range of sources pointing at a wide range of their pages. That is a natural link profile. Having 100 links pointing at your site (mostly the home page) from a few sources using 3 or 4 different but exact keywords is not natural – with a few exceptions. Exact Match Domain Name sites are treated different – if your site is doggrooming.com then you will have an abundance of keyword anchors in your backlinks but keep in mind – they all won’t be “Dog Grooming”, many will be “doggrooming.com” or “doggrooming” or “Bob’s Dog Grooming Site” or just “Bob’s Site”. The point is that even Exact Match Domain Name sites still have a natural vs un-natural link profile.
I test a lot and one thing has always stood out – you can easily extrapolate the wrong conclusions for any number of reasons but usually because you are already looking for a set conclusion and quickly jump on any result that seems to prove what you thought in the first place. Or you don’t have enough data – testing on one site only is a mistake.
Case in point – I have been interested in how the G algo treats too many”keyword anchored links” as well as the old standards “will I be penalized for too many links too quickly?” and “I think I’m being penalized can I fix it?”
The answers are “It Depends”
You have to understand G’s version of a Trusted site. If your site is trusted then you will be treated in the algo differently than if you aren’t trusted.
Does your site have age? Again an aged site gets different treatment than a new site.
Links from authority or trusted sites will gain you trust. You can still attain trust over time even without a single link from an authority site – it just takes time.
Now I recently tested 5 sites that are all older than 4 years. They all rank on top for their niche/keywords. They all rank for a number of relevant keywords and I haven’t done a thing to the sites since I built them. They are all 10-20 page static sites.They all have between 300 – 700 visitors a day and have built up a few dozen real links from sites I don’t know over the years. The links I provided to start them off have long since fallen off of G’s radar (even in WebMaster Tools). They basically have a natural link profile and sparingly as they are they all rank well due to poor competition and the fact that my sites have links from relevant sites and mostly contained with in the posts – not sidebars or footers.
So I picked one keyword from each site and had 50 perfectly matched anchor links point to a page on each site. Within a few days all 5 pages dropped to page 10 or worse in the serp’s for the keyword that was targeted. Most of you would immediately conclude then that you will be penalized for using exact keyword links or for using too many or for having them all point to just one page. Well which is it – all of the above? Or is it just because I had too many? The point is you may get obvious results (there is no doubt what I did caused a major reaction with the algo) but there are still many factors you have to weed out before you know exactly what caused it. Rule number 1 when testing. Wait before doing anything. A few days ago 1 site was right back on top of the serps for the term it had been relegated to page 10 for after the link barrage. As of today a second site has rebounded to its former position. Another site has held steady on page 12 and the other two have continued to drop in the serps since the original drop.
So what gives? I did the same thing to all 5 sites and have different results. The fact is you have to consider your competition’s trust factor and yours.
The two niches I rebounded in have no serious competition and my sites have some trust (one has a wikipedia link to it as an authority on a certain topic and the other has several media links). Because of their trust they overcame the sudden influx of keyword only links. My competition have only keyword anchored links and most from irrelevant sites.
The site that is holding steady has some trust but so does the competition and mine has just lost some of it due to the links. It’s not dead and I will be removing the offending links to see if it can rebound.
The last two sites had little trust even though they ranked number 1. The entire niche is trustless (think MMO for example or any spam niche). I ranked well only because the sites were old and hadn’t suffered penalties like the competitors. Even in a niche that everyone is gaming someone has to rank on top – the best of the worst until a trust site emerges. I’ll see if I can reverse them as well.
Yes, but Griz, I have had my ranking improve just using Keyword anchored links. And some of you will see improvement, at least for awhile. It depends on the other factors your site is ranking for and your competition. If you have trust and/or your competitors are all heavy on keyword links then you can get away with it but pass the magic number and you will see a detrimental effect.
If I had to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do I would tell you to stick to Brand links as they won’t hurt you long run. Concentrate on relevant, in content, brand links and don’t worry about getting your keywords in the links. G has come a long way – if your pages are optimized properly then G knows what your page is about. Just get the page a few quality links and your site’s trust factor will rise. The higher your trust factor the better you will rank for everything on your site.
I think many of you have figured out that you can use any link anchor these days and have been avoiding keyword targeted anchors but I still get asked often by beginners (because of the old posts) whether I still recommended the same type of links and I don’t. I strongly suggest you all pay heed to keeping your profile natural regardless of your linking sources or habits.
Too many links too fast is not going to hurt you if natural looking. If they are not natural they may well hurt you. Know where your site stands in G’s eyes. Darren Rowse can get 100 links tomorrow that all use the keyword “Pro Blogger” and he won’t suffer as the links are nothing compared to the overall amount he has and the keywords are reasonable given his site’s name. Plus his site will have a regular and natural pattern of incoming links – usually concurrent with a knew post and most of the links will be to the post page and not the home page. 100 new links wouldn’t raise a flag on his site. If you have a site with a few dozen total links and suddenly have an influx of 100 links that all use different anchors and point at different pages you probably won’t raise a flag either. If all the links are identical keyword links you probably will raise the flag. Everything is relative to your own metrics and your competitions. As such there is no right or wrong answer. What may work for one site may not work for another. If you’re in this for the long haul then be safe – go natural and be patient.
And speaking of links I know many of you have already changed or removed your links to the old MMOFB site but for those that haven’t you should. A few dead links on your site aren’t going to hurt you but its always better to do away with dead links. It’s a pain checking sites for dead links but you should from time to time as I have seen improvement in the ranks after giving sites a good housekeeping.
On a side note it has got to the point that even dinosaurs like me have to use CSS and PHP these days and can’t just rely on their cut and paste HTML talents anymore. These bloody themes (if using blogs on WP for example) require you to muck about with stylesheets and PHP if you want to get them optimized properly. Yes there are lots of plugins for us idiots but they can be a challenge as well. For those interested RT Cunningham is slowly posting some articles aimed at the novice wanting to know some of the basics. He has had two posts to date and you can find him here; PHP Programming for Beginners
For that matter – many of my old friends are code monkeys and I welcome any posts that any of you would like to share regarding WP Theme optimizing, plugins etc. Hit me up as I get asked a lot of questions that I can’t answer.
Ok – long enough. Have to get back into the long posts slowly.
Cheers,
Griz
So Griz, what do you use to create your static sites?
I just steal source code from stuff I like, hack and slash my way through it on my composer and spit out a fairly plain but well optimized site.
Thanks for the heads-up Grizz!
btw, here’s my noob question… should I always confirm(ownership) to G every time I had a new site?
Ariston,
I rarely ever confirm ownership with G. The exceptions are when I use G Places and Geo Target sites for business clients. And while I control the sites they are all registered to different people/businesses.
Nice to have you back Griz. True to form, another great post. I guess I can mark my calendar – track the golfing season and I will know when to look for new posts.
How cold is in in MB? Last time I was there was 2 years ago and it was -20, too cold for a Torontionian.
Question related to the post: Is there any additional benefit to using “spunfree” posts for articles besides the chance they will stay indexed longer (or indexed at all)?
Darren,
I have never used spun articles other than for testing purposes. I really don’t have any thin sites anymore as I build pages to stick (original content) and to serve a purpose (convert, funnel). As for article marketing in general – I don’t use it much anymore as it seemed to lose its shine. Too time consuming with not enough results.
As for the temp its only -17c at the moment – pretty mild. I don’t even zip my jacket up until it hits -25c…
You say you don’t use article marketing anymore. Is Postrunner article marketing? How about BMR and Linkvana and other ones like that where you write short 150 to 200 words with an anchor in there?
If you don’t do any of those anymore, where are you getting your links? Isn’t it all really “article marketing”?
What Seth asked.
Would PostRunner & BMR be ok to use?
Any thoughts on forum profile links?
Thanks. That sounds like the way I get through most of my way/day at work. So many people have done so much before me that I usually don’t need to reinvent the wheel. By the way, has anyone invented a wheel yet? I think inclined surfaces will go over really well.
Thanks Grizz.
If you think you’ve been penalized, do you need to remove the offending links to regain trust? Or is gradually adding new links to create a more balanced profile going to cut it? Often you cannot remove a link already placed…
Judging by how often problogger is mentioned in your posts, Twitter was quite smart in grouping you together lol
Sam,
Touche my friend.
Remove or edit what you can while also balancing your profile with brand links.
I wish I had read this article before I decided to add more links to my site
My site was on page one about position 3 and I wanted to move it up. It has been there for about 6 months and was making me some nice money on adsense as well as affiliate programmes. THEN I decided to get some ezinearticle backlinks. I wrote tne articles and since then (beginning of december) my site has gone to the second page and for other pages that were on page 1 has gone to like position 100 for most. This site is over 100 pages too.
So after reading this comment I have taken off the links to those ezinearticles that I did in december – I hope that is the right thing to do and ever since have been building my site up more with more reviews.
I just wanted to update my comment. Nothing seemed to happen to my site once I took the links off – in fact it got worse, so two days ago I went into my webmaster account and noticed I could contact google to reconsider the site. Well today I check my position and I am in number 1 and number 2 for my main 2 keywords
Whether google looked at it already and decided it was ok again or whether its a huge coincidence is beyond me but its made me happy for today anyway. I was totally honest with them though and said that I had added some ezinearticle backlinks and thats when I saw the huge drop in rankings. Anyway as of today I am back where I belong (well actually a little better).
Hi Griz,
Thanks so much for the link.
So I got it *mostly* right about why some websites got penalised for exact anchors, but didn’t take it far enough in working out that trust is another major factor. I knew there had to be something else though but couldnt’ put my finger on it.
That’s why you are the best. Griz you rock.
t xx
You’re welcome Tracey. You weren’t wrong. There just isn’t a one size fits all right way.
Very good info here, Griz, for those who care to pay attention that is. As some of the other regulars here know, I’m an American living in the Philippines (like our good friend RT).
A few months ago a very popular link building technique/service got quite popular in these circles, centering on hiring groups to post dozens of profile links and comment links, for pay, to allegedly relevant blogs. Several of these services are based in the Philippines.
Now there’s nothing wrong with working with people in the Philippines, hey I’m married to a Filipino and I have loads of friends and family here … it’s a great place to live.
But likely becuase people given the task of finding blogs to build links on are liable to look first in places they are most familiar with … and my primary personal “real” blog … not a money-making venture … is about the Philippines, guess what I saw … for months now.
Dozens of scammy, one-liner blog comments, all built around certain keywords and certain, repetitive sites, all using me as a convenient place to wipe their feet and leave behind links and keywords. Seriously, in a span of several months my comment traffic quintupled … and that sure didn’t happen becuase I was writing better posts
The most correct thing I know that’s been said in recent history regarding the Google algorithms is your comment above, “It depends”.
Nobody can say, for a certainty, that this technique or that technique will have exact consequence “A” or exact consequence “B”. Those that say they do know fall into two categories … somebody trying to work a scam or somebody who is actually ignorant of what’s going on and doesn’t even realize they are ignorant.
My gold-plated, years of experience advice .. for free, I haven’t put the $47 eBook on the market yet
, is:
Stop trying to game the system to get thin sites artificially into the SERPS.
If you want to rank highly for “oil filters”, instead of paying human robots to artificially build links and comment spam for “oil filters’, spend your personal time (or your outsourcing budget) on providing information (and easy one click buying) for “oil filters”.
Another true “Griz-ism” expressed above is that Google is better than it used to be and is continually morphing and changing. Stop chasing last month’s “secret technique” and provide value (i.e. a thicker site) and I can assure you that you’ll be rewarded, and what’s more, you’ll never have to worry about any sort of penalty.
Merry Christmas and a very Happy and Prosperous New Year to all.
Well said Dave. Most of the lifers have had their thin sites implode over the years and spend their time building substance these days but its a good idea to warn the beginners that those thin affiliate days are over.
Hi GrizZ!,
Thank you for the “tips”
and yes I used to have a site which is about 3 months old and about 6-8 posts in it 
and after hearing some advices from one of my good friends I decided to make it “not that thin” (sorry kinda stuck with words these days 
lol). So after the next 2 months I put like 130 + original content (each 500 + plus) in the site and now getting some traffic and some $$ 
as well and continuously keep writing.
Just wanted to stop by and say THANK YOU.
S-Gayan.
hmm,
So you’re saying don’t use anchor text link, it doesn’t really matter?
So I can just use domain.com, persona name, a lil bit of keywords variations and i’ll rank?
Ryan,
Yup – you could still use keyword anchors too in the right circumstances but if you don’t know what the right circumstances are it is risky. Therefor stick to safe links.
Thanks for the reminder about the links to your old site. I think I’ve got about 1000 or so to deal with.
My take is that people get way too worried (or Googlenoid) about the exact number of links per day or the exact percentage that will trigger a ‘penalty’. Often they aren’t doing enough to trigger anything except a low ranking because they don’t have enough links and certainly not enough quality links.
On the ‘branding’ thing, I do think Google is trying to work that angle but they’re being less than successful at it. For example, I was taking a look at some potential niches in a particular topic today and almost all I found on the first couple of pages of results were auto-gen mega-sites. They were forum, article directory and RSS feed scrapper sites for the most part with between 50K and 100K pages total. Their external links were almost all ‘branded’ ones, and amazingly relatively high quality ones at that, while their internal linking and page titles were almost all highly keyword targeted. It does make you say, “hmm…….”
Hey Frank – great hearing from ya’. Any snow in Atlanta this year?
You’ve just described the type of sites the “professional Seo’s” are creating these days – the new link farms. Massive sites, deep linked internally and externally and connected to other massive sites. If it sounds familiar they are just copying the model or structure of the most successfully branded and trusted sites online – the media networks. When in doubt “Copy what works”.
How successful G is at this point is debatable as they are having trouble with EMDN sites which can’t be penalized for having exact match keywords. The algo has to balance these out and what the threshold is, is any ones guess.
Thanks for the post, Griz. Your experiments and experience helped so many people already. I started to make money online thanks to you! So I wish you long, happy and prosperous life and the best health!
Griz, regarding branding. Would we be better off with out an exact match domain now? I’ll provide an example.
Say we have website on the keyword “Fountain Pens”.
Would “fountainpens.org” be better or worse than a branded name such as “FountainPlanet.com” or “PenMonster.com”. You get what I’m saying? I’ve seen many sites on the serps at the top with atleast one of the keywords in the title even if it was for two or three word keywords. They usually throw in an unrelated word like “galaxy”(pengalaxy.whatever). I’ve also seen the exact matches get on there as well? In your experience do you know which is better. I’m probably looking for an easy answer, but I assume age has everything to do with it. I’m willing to bet that exact matches can get closer to page one faster(but may not rest in position 1 easier). Right or wrong? What’s Griz’s take?
Hi Red,
I’m going to follow this post up with a discussion of Exact Match Domains but in short they still have an advantage over sites that don’t use their keywords in the domain. bobspens.com is better than bobsstuff.com. Forget G for a moment and ask yourself as a user looking for a site selling pens – aren’t you likely to click on the bobspens.com site before clicking on bobsstuff.com? Most people want to see the keyword they are searching for prominently displayed in the Title, Description or URL of the serps they are perusing. A good user experience as G likes to say and if G eliminated all the sites using EMD they would be providing a bad user experience as none of us want to click on sites wondering if they really sell pens.
Hello From Winnipeg Griz!
Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year To You And Yours!
Go Jets Go!! ;P
Huge fan of your work Griz! I like the new site too very user friendly!
I popped back into your site here tonight because the other night i noticed you had h3 tags up on your widgets headers and noticed my blogger blog was using h2 widgets, and h3 post tags so i thought i would come double check more working examples and noticed your new post and your post title is h1 and yer header appears to be just reg text.. comments or insight on this please or just get back to the back links and dont worry or does it help to use popular, profitable, and relevant keywords/phrases in widget H2-6 tags and posts? H1,2,3 for post tag? What do you think about using POST TITLE NAME with link back to main site page with keyword and phrase as part of onpage seo compared to BLOG TITLE NAME?
I noticed some time ago that “now” when i post a new article on my blogger blog within about 5 minutes on most posts my new page is indexed and appearing in the top ten serps if not #1 in some low competition niches and seems to do ok in mid competition niches… is this “trust” in the eyes of G rather then having to wait days and days for the new post to be indexed let alone ranked? is this the “sandbox” or “trust” or what type of name can i put to this phenomena, avoid it on new sites, or is it a “just wait..” thing.
I also had a question about what happens after your post is moved off the main page and replaced with a new one… I noticed that when I post a new page out and after its indexed my main page still seems to rank #1 for that phrase until the front page post is replaced with a new one THEN the url of the page ranks #1 and not the main page any more..in only minutes – but then i see sometimes/all the time see a drop in that top ranking to the third page or so the same way i do if i edit a post because of typo, etc.. and then i also see previous posts climb when i add new posts!? any insight on this?
does a new post rank well and then drop in ranking because its the power of the main page that is causing the ranking and then it drops because the replacement is a new page without juice yet?
and finally…what happened to the blogger blog?! =(
I hope you will reply to my questions and that other users will find this comment and possible reply useful as well!
Your Loyal Visitor And Contributor! – That’s Interesting… Click! =P
Excellent!
Your honesty is brutal
But that is why I and many others frequent your school of knowledge. No lies. No gimmicks. No underlying motives.
When you stated, “Concentrate on relevant, in content, brand links and don’t worry about getting your keywords in the links. G has come a long way – if your pages are optimized properly then G knows what your page is about,” I was grateful to know that my recent efforts have not been in haste. For me, most of my internet marketing is focused on a variety of “business” related niches for clients, where brand links are relatively easy to come by, especially if you sell the product brand. [hint to the beginners] However, aside from them I have several sites that could use some brand links for. Care to elaborate on where one would get some, lets say, “Sports” brand links? Or any insight into this nature of links?
What I am especially impressed about is the fact that you conduct experiments with sites that are already established, aged, and carry trust in the eyes of Google. Being relatively new to this, my personal sites have yet to meet all that criteria, but thanks to your experiments it is likely going to be easier to achieve positive results. Thank you!
I was wondering, and likely for the sake of many, how do you know if your site has trust? Is there a tool, gadget, or code to get an analysis from Google?
Thanks Griz
Thanks for the mention, Griz.
I’m just trying to take the best parts of what I’ve learned and break it down for anyone trying to go the DIY route. I’ve found that relying on a developer or theme designer to get back to you is an exercise in frustration, the waiting game. If you know what to do to fix something yourself, you can get rid of the wait time completely.
I haven’t started hitting the CSS stuff yet and frankly, I have enough of the PHP stuff to last a long time. Don’t even ask about HTML and XHTML, or transitional or strict, my head would implode.
Hey, Grizzly!
I’ve never commented your posts before. I want to thank you for sharing your knowledge, thoughts and ideas. I learnt so much from all your sites, and especially from MMOFB. It helped me a lot. I just had very difficult time and didn’t believe in success. When I was reading your post one after another I was becoming more confident and sure about my own actions. I definitely can’t do everything you suggest, but anyway I read, try and see what will happen. I also want to wish you Good Luck and Merry Christmas to you and your family!
PS: I’m looking forward for more great posts
and Thanks again.
[...] things you are. Make Money Online with Griz is one such site and in fact, the recent article on link profiles talks about the same things I'm mentioning here. Whenever I comment on that website (among [...]
Hey Griz,
If anyone needs some CSS tutorials with a working example website, I wrote a bunch of them back in 2007 and they’re still valid now. You can find them by clicking the link on this comment name.
Terry
Hey Griz!
I noticed that on your LinkIn page (https://ca.linkedin.com/in/grizzly), there are two links to your old MMO blog. Probably doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, but just happen to see it and thought I’d mention it.
I suspect that link could probably be found in a few million places, including one of my own sites that I hadn’t even thought of changing until I read this article – it’s good to go now though!
Great post on Link Profiles – as usual.
Hi Grizzly (and company),
In respect to your post (which I find a breath of fresh air), I need to say that link building “seems” to take a lot of time away from what really makes a great site. I realize that sounds counter-seo and I mean no disrespect but long before I began my quest for seo knowledge I preached to clients (people I developed sites for) that the best way to market yourself online is to articulate your product/service in a way the end user could relate. This, in most cases, resulted in lots of naturally written content about first-hand products/services.
As an example, I recently came off a nine year development/marketing contract with a web-based education site. Being honest, I didn’t have a clue about SEO in the early stages of this contract and didn’t advise building links. Instead we focused on lots of content that turned prospects into becoming buying customers.
Looking back, I am almost embarrassed to admit the front-end of that particular site was so poorly optimized I shouldn’t even have considered myself qualified to sell online marketing services. That said, behind the front-end was a slick web-based learning solution (that we developed) and people loved it. And that is what got us links. We got links from industry channels we never canvassed, and we got links from client’s websites. Many of these links were to the home page and clearly branded, but more links were to our login and demo pages (lots were branded, and lots were miscellaneous, i.e. launch course, course login, etc.).
Believe it or not, at one point we had the same title tag for almost every front-end page and still ranked top three for many important keywords before I had a clue what SEO was. When I finally started getting my head around seo and learned how to verify rankings and incoming links I was a shocked (in a good way). Don’t get me wrong, I’m not patting myself on the back – none of it was intentional, at least nothing during the first five or six years.
Point being, I have spent the last few years ingesting seo and I struggle with the time it takes to implement (never mind learn) the tactics versus concentrating on how to make the content convincing enough to get people to try a demo, ask for more info, pick the phone, etc. I guess I wonder how much time should go into seo (i.e. intentional link building) versus product development and good old fashioned sales copy (that doesn’t sound slippery).
Again, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not dissing seo, I’m fascinated by it, realize its importance, and honestly surprised how long it took it me to clue in. When I read posts like this, it excites me because it moves away from the repetitive, dizzying advice on ways to game the engines. This post, to me, is about being natural and that’s what has worked for me (or at least for clients I have had the pleasure of serving).
Of course, what worked for my clients may not yield any results if the site’s intention is adsense clicks or affiliate sales. This is where things get a little fuzzy… I guess Griz is on the money when he eludes to the fact that seo is not a one size fits all.
For anyone interested, the above mentioned site was getting 500 to 1000 uniques a day, 20 to 40 of them requesting demos (each day), and approximately 1MIL page views per month from paying clients (actually those page views came from the clients’ students). It was a solid web business, and a great contract… until they got acquired. Yep, a seven figure acquisition for a website that only had 250 odd customers. The new company kept me on for knowledge transfer then faded into the sunset with in-house development/marketing people.
Moving forward… the flavour of this post is very encouraging and hopefully a sign that Griz is embarking on a direction in seo that is a lot more comfortable, at least for people like me. Been a follower for many years Griz and honestly can’t wait to you get rolling with the new marketing lessons, I think we’re all in for some exciting times!
In closing I am so happy that you weren’t discouraged by whatever happened with your old blog and google and that you have decided to come back and openly share your passion for internet marketing.
Regards,
Ross
After re-visiting, I just want to follow up my previous comment with mention to the fact that these comments are very valuable too! Without your awesome followers Griz, this site would not be as useful and informative. Not to take away from your content and wisdom, but these comments can certainly brew up some excellent and vital information and resources!
Thank Griz, and thank you all too!
hi Grizz, i have been reading most of your posts and also vic’s videos, both of you are good. this post reminds me of ranking without thinking of ranking, this is simply website creation for the purpose of creation then let G do the ranking. Thanks for giving us the idea.
Loved this post. I have been reading your posts for some time and just keep soaking it up.
I have never commented before but this time I thought I would take the leap. I have a review site that is going to be covering a variety of categories. Mainly products I have personally used over the course of my life. Since there is not one particular niche I gave it the name of the road I grew up on for want of something better. “Travisville Road Reviews”
There are many good review sites out there that are not niche based but cover, like I intend to, many different items. I know this will take some time but I am in no hurry and want to produce quality, in-depth personal reviews.
So my questions are:
Is this kind of site practical for a single website guy like myself to actually rank?
What are some general rules I should follow with this kind of review site?
Do you yourself have any sites similar in nature?
I know I’ll think of many other questions after I post this but some insight on these would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Griz