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Anchor text distribution problem

Hello guys,

So after my last 2 niche sites getting slapped, probably because of not using much anchor text variation, I thought I'd start the new niche site with utmost carefulness this time.

So I've adjusted all those LSI and Secondary, generic, etc anchor text % to 100% (or kept 90% before and assumed that 10% would be shared for main anchor text i.e. the anchor text, textbox). But when I do a search on ahrefs, it shows that my main keyword occurs 32% times!

How come this? Maybe I don't know proper logic to target, so perhaps any experts could explain please on how to set the main anchor text to around 10% or below? Perhaps @ron and many other experts here could know?

Thank you.

Comments

  • ronron SERLists.com
    Take a picture of those settings, block out the keywords and post it.
  • @ron Thanks for the reply!


    Cheers.
  • ronron SERLists.com
    edited September 2013

    I really don't see anything wrong which is puzzling.

    If you go to the project, right click, pull up verified, and sort by anchor text, what do you see?

    On a side note, I would be taking advantage of branding and domain as anchor. I personally don't want such a high percentage of anchors to be either the real keywords or LSI.

  • edited September 2013

    main keyword (32% one)..........................: 17
    kw2..............................:  6
    ....................:  5
    .....................:  3
    ........................:  3
    ...................:  2
    ................:  2
    so on...

    I checked it ago too and it was similar back then too. Weird isn't it?
  • 2Take22Take2 UK
    edited September 2013
    I wouldn't rely on the data from ahrefs TBH, as most likely it won't have picked up all of your links.

    Also, you have 100% of your settings as generic, secondary, lsi etc - That doesn't leave anything left over for your actual primary anchor text?

    Strange though, as I have always found those settings on SER to be pretty accurate.

  • @2Take2 Agreed but anchor text distribution report out of SER also reports almost the same distribution %, doesn't it?
  • 2Take22Take2 UK
    edited September 2013
    Agreed.

    Personally, I think that you should let it run a bit though, and then check it again, as 40 links is not very many to draw a conclusion from.

    Also, I'd definitely take Ron's advice about using more domain and brand anchors.
  • It isn't 40 exactly, I cancelled further that. It's around 49 verified as of now with over more than 75 submitted pending to be verified. So I guess under 55.
  • ronron SERLists.com

    None of this makes sense. You had to do something at the beginning of the project (where it made those exact anchor links), and changed something later.

    In ahrefs, look at the date those links were first found (or ser for that matter). I bet the answer is there.

    And yes, according to your settings, you should have 3% exact anchor (anchor text variation doesn't count). Which makes it more bizarre. This is an extremely small sample size, which makes this data a little less than perfect.

  • 2Take22Take2 UK
    edited September 2013
    Ahh yes, of course, anchor variation doesn't count - I just read the percentages and added them up  :-S
  • What? I didn't get it well. Ron, these changes are not made today, they were since start. There just just a slight change, but even if consider it from start, I had it set for not more than 10%. :S
  • edited September 2013
    what platforms are you using? im having a similar issue
  • ronron SERLists.com
    It was just a theory. A lot of times people tweak their settings after they get the project going. Honestly, I have no idea.
  • @rodol Its Tier1 and I'm following @ron 's diagram so I have chosen Articles, Web 2.0s, Social Bookmark & Social Networks.

    @ron Then that's what perhaps you're telling to wait and see as the links increase and then see the distribution? I fear my two sites got penalized due to same reason, because I was at least using 4 anchor texts for them, so in no way my main keyword for those niche sites should have had 60% anchor text distribution, but a max of 25% was only possible. Hmm, confusing indeed.

    @Sven If I could get an help, that'd be great.

    Thank you!
  • 2Take22Take2 UK
    edited September 2013
    @Pratik, How are you setting up your content to insert your anchors?

    Are you using %macros%, spinning in the HTML yourself, just letting SER insert it on its own, or a combination of these things?
  • @2Take2 I let SER insert it for me, I do not use any macros. Is this the reason probably? Seems like we're getting close to spotting the problem. :)
  • @Pratik, That's even stranger then!

    I had a thought that maybe inserting macros etc. *could* be causing your problem, but I guess not.


  • @Sven can you please help? As I'm not able to identify the problem.

    Thank you!
  • edited September 2013
    this is strange cos i have the opposite reuslts of majestic showing 0%! of my chosen anchours. all it picks up is 80% otehr, 10 or so domain and the rest just the url of my internal links; NO ancohours at all!

    I had followed ozz's diagram of kw distribution.

    I do check in scrapebox tho for the anchours and it does show probably about what i setup in gsa so i guess the discrepancy is jsut what majestic hasnt picked up but it seems weird how it hasnt found ANY kws in the month or more ive had the site going.

    I just checked ahrefs and the same deal. if both independant sevices show the same result it indicates soemthing else might be going on.

    Why would this be?
  • @PeterParker Weird indeed. Only @Sven can answer and help us I guess. :\
  • Wild guess, @ron @2Take2 @PeterParker is it possible that by coincidence my main anchor pages are being approved/stable more than all other anchors? But how come with all niche sites so far?

    @Sven Not sure if I'm eligible to get an answer here or because of that LPM thread which may have annoyed you. Sorry if you're busy and am bugging you.

    Thank you.
  • Couldn't say but maybe your situation is the same as mine it just happens to be a different result, but perhaps the same cause.

    Too bad we don't know the cause :D
  • @Pratik,

    Although we've been offering possible solutions, I think that for now your best bet would be to duplicate the project, swap the content for something random from wikipedia, change the target url to bing.com, turn off any filters and posting limits, and let rip with SER for a couple of hours to see what happens.

    Maybe build a couple of thousand verifieds, export them to excel and see how it looks.
  • how many keywords you have on partial match, secondary and main anchor boxes?
  • SvenSven www.GSA-Online.de

    @Pratik no Im not upset because of a previous thread. Im not that kind of person if the thread makes sense. However I didn't had time recently to read all forum posts (doing that now).

    I actually don't know whats wrong here. I would need your project backup to see details.

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