Anchor text strategy question

Mike

How important is posting the backlinks with anchor text to promote my money site?
I know I can exclude platforms that don't use anchor txt but what is a better stategy if I want to rank as high as possible for keywords searches that use my anchor text.
Should I post as many good pr backlinks as possible, WITH and WITHOUT anchor text?
Or should I just submit fewer good pr backlinks to anchor text only sites?

Im getting ready to launch a new project that will promote about 100 anchor texts for a different area of my business I want to be found for.
In the long run which strategy will help my site to rank best. More backlinks or fewer, but anchor text only?

Any seo advice would be greatly appreciated?

adventurouslover

Think about how high authority pages rank naturally.
Do you think wikipedia or amazon only get anchored text links exclusively?

Mike

I guess I just don't understand how links without anchor text would be useful for a "no authority" page like mine.
I will take your advice and not run anchor texts links exclusively. Thanks!

takeachance

Shortly before Panda was released G stated ( for what's that's worth!) that they had turned down their anchor text qualifier.

They went onto say they discovered 'other ways' to harness the data they need without using anchor text. My steer on this is they are using on page factors to which your link sits to determine relevancy.

Anchor text is still important, but not as crucial as it once was. If I am right, links on pages which are relevant to the anchor text you wish to target is the 'legit' way to manipulate anchor text sculpting .

Mike

Thanks for the info and helping me to understand this concept much better. From your advice I will try to create a broad range with and without anchor text, and will try to get links on more relevant pages. Really appreciate this response.

fullspeed

"G stated" -- this is the same company that started out with the motto "Do no evil" and sent Google Earth vehicles to capture street view with cameras while collecting unsecured WI-FI data from public networks.

G just also released a disavow inbound link reporting tool which is basically like G admitting that negative SEO can take place and googlebot cannot sort it out naturally.

G has and will do whatever it can to be vague, ambiguous, misleading and diabolically confuse you, in order to protect their most cherished algorithm.

I take everything they say as a grain of salt.

So whenever I see something that G has released -- it's gotta be already passe -- and in my books that is irrelevant -- because it's something they no longer need to protect to make it public knowledge -- or -- it's just more cud for webmasters and SEOs to chew and leave them and the rest of the organic search seeking followers in a quandry.

The only thing that IS conclusive -- and this is not to take the wind out of anyone's answers -- is your own scientific and isolated tests, which, I believe would need to take place in mass quantity (unfortunately).

Reason being....

I've read so many things that G has done to site owner that make NO sense with the relevant time period, and stuff that's so random -- the ONLY sure thing to expect from G is being completely and undeniably UNPREDICTABLE.

And thus, I have concluded my rant here -- because otherwise, this would turn into a deeply passionate novel on the goings on I have witnessed over the past 8 years with G's completely hypocritical "Do No Evil" behavior.

It's definite a LOVE/HATE relationship -- without one single doubt.

All in all -- the fact is -- G is CONSTANTLY tweaking their algorithm because it is SO complex (giving weight to a multitude of onpage and offpage factors -- the G scientists themselves have NO CLUE the impact their algo tweaks have on the index.  So how can we (non-privvy individuals) even begin to assume anything one way or the other in a definite manner with their algo.

If anyone's data I would halfway trust -- it's SEO Moz's own data that they collect by tracking the SERPs and openly divulge the analysis of what they feel are the G ranking factors:

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

After all, it IS inevitable -- that once you assume you know THE answer today -- something two, three, six or however many months down the line will change -- and then what?

There's gotta be some HAPPY MEDIUM where you operate that G doesn't  spot you on the radar no matter what.

That's why I think it's never wise to use excessive amounts of any offpage or onpage stuff that is readily noticeable.  G -- to me - is metaphorically like the IRS -- just don't do something that would be so obvious as to raise a red flag or two or three to make them wanna audit you.

In my experience, the folks that got the penalization that was coming to them did things in EXCESS because they got OVERLY excited or were desperate to make money REAL quick -- instead of being grounded in the fundamentals.  Sticking to the fundamentals, appearing human when you use automated software tools, slowing turning up the volume of disseminating links and scattering links with in a variety of anchor text and having a diverse link portfolio that grows at a constant rate and not like some EARTHQUAKE that spikes the needled on a seismograph machine.  Fundamentals WILL allowing everything to turn out all right.  

But I personally say -- never devote, dedicate or commit yourself to any one specific truth about what G is doing to rank sites because the moment you are committed to that -- they switch it up, pull out the rug from underneath you or add yet another element they want to discount.

I knew it was only a matter of time that all those folks obsessing and taking advantage of the slight ranking power inherent in keyword rich domain names were going to get slapped.

Go back to the fundamentals and I guarantee you that all those web pages that have HIGH QUALITY, well thought out content are still high up in the SERPs as they were before any algo change.  Probably the only one thing I truly believed in Google's disclosure was the clarity of what they said when Panda/Farmer was first released:

"This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on."

I mean -- that's the FORMULA right there -- give high value add for users -- and you'll literally guarantee your top ranking for years and years to come.  I should know -- I've got a double listing for an optimized keyword I wrote the initial article 4 years ago - and then an updated article 2 years ago -- and both are sitting right  atop "forrester.com" -- a G authority site well known for market research firm.

takeachance

lol! I did caveat my comments with 'for what it's worth' for that very reason. They are the masters of disinformation. I don't agree that following their guidelines will protect you for years to come though.

In recent months some of my real authority sites have been hit, they contain nothing but well researched and meaningful content, well shared by visitors and recommended by industry peers. There is no discernible pattern that I can see at the moment .

AlexR

@fullspeed - great write-up. Good summary. So important to remember to actually offer something that users would like. You talk about testing and I'm in the process of devising a number of tests we can run with some invited GSA users and can then share the knowledge. Will let you know when I get it all started. :-)

fullspeed

 @takeachance -- caveated comments were duly noted -- I was just adding a HIGH DOSE of pessimism to your comment  -- On your authority sites -- do they have heavy backlinking done in the past year or two?  I've only seen some of my articles that I wrote like 5 years ago still at the very top of the engines and even above high authority sites like Forrester.com.  So I'm trying to understand what exactly it may be (like building heavy links to your site) as this site does not have a HUGE backlink profile and not much backlinking done to it for like 6 years.  Some of the threads however have like 100 - 200 actual comments each.

@globalgoogler -- yes -- it would be great for folks to do various tests so that we have a GLOBAL understanding of sites setup -- and perhaps we can get a TESTING THREAD started that folks can enter their testing parameters on a TEST DOMAIN -- and then we can report back what's what on that thread -- it would be hopeful to have that thread pinned so we don't have to look for it in the forum or through a bookmark.

Having a pool of knowledge to draw on rather than just a single person testing is key.

Heck -- it only costs like $8-$10 for a brand new domain -- but the value from testing the diff. from what works and what doesn't is priceless.

Furthermore, on such a thread -- we can, as a team, see who is doing what kind of testing so it's NOT repeated because there's no point in double up testing.  Of course, it may not behoove us to test in various geographical areas the same testing parameters just to see if there is geo-preferencing in Google.  

But -- I believe a well concerted effort on a specific thread would be the best way to attack this. 

This type of thing, however, demands open-minded people that have no problem sharing openly.

takeachance

@fullspeed - no problem . In regard to my authority (we all think we have the 'authority' don't we) sites no, I have not done any backlinking for this particular site at all. The reason for this is I have always used it as a test bed for what 'natural' looks like. Given the quality of the information I always get natural links being added every month. The only aspect I can see being an issue could be freshness. I tend to post just one or two posts each month and perhaps this is just not enough....

That said, (and back to the misinformation) Crab Mutts said in a recent video that depending upon your niche freshness doesn't always come into the equation. This site is one that doesn't have 'breaking news' every week  - I would consider it an evergreen niche. Its in the Science field actually, but as I think we all agree on, the only true way to know whats going on is through your own data and testing, testing, testing!

fullspeed

True, true, true.

Let's also remember that freshness has to do with spidering and return of GoogleBot.  So if you have a stale site that is not refresh often - googlebot will tend to NOT return often, which means it's not re-evaluating your site for potential ranking elements (at least this is my theory) and can't say that I know exactly how googlebot thinks, reacts, analyzes, comprehends and then subsequently acts.

Either way, I am working to get a WordPress plugin coded to work with WP Super Cache as follows:

1)  Allow pages and posts to be input WITH SPINTAX.

2)  Wordpress spins the given post ONCE -- and then WP Super Cache is delegated the task to CACHE it (preferably for 15-20 days).

3)  There will be a setting to have that specific article REFRESHED every ____ "X" number of days or have a GLOBAL setting to randomly refresh between "X" number of days and "X" number of days.

The whole point would be to have a number of posts, articles and such changing ever so often -- meaning that a BUNCH of Posts/Pages would be changing quite often.  Therefore, this would BUMP the freshness of the site up -- even if you are NOT updating the site.

Obviously, main keywords like in the title should be present.

BTW -- I should know by Monday the estimate on this -- but it should NOT be a truly complex plugin -- and the point is to NOT make it overall complex.

I just haven't been able to find a WP plugin like this -- and I'd like to have one.

If ANYONE is interested in going in on something like this, lemme know because you'll be able to shape the plugin's features together with me.

Anywho -- I keep looking for something like this -- but haven't been able to find something -- or most of the spintax plugins are old, out of date, or the site is closed down due to updating or their plugin just plain doesn't work.

If anyone does happen to know about a plugin similar to what I'm describing -- please let me know here or just PM me.

However, since I have my own team of developers (I've used the same ones for 3 years) -- I would much rather NOT rely upon some software developer chump who is here today, gone tomorrow and renders my investment in his plugin useless sometime in the future.  

takeachance

@fullspeed there is a plugin recently released which does exactly this. I am out of my office at the mo but will dig out the link/name later.

fullspeed

@takeachance -- u da bomb!  Lemme know

takeachance

Darn! I spent over an hour trying to find the bloody thing but can't recollect the name! perhaps others here know of it? I believe it was an wso about 2-3 weeks ago and in essence spins titles and a paragraph of content I think. You can set how many days before each post title is spun and other settings - anyone know the one??

AlexR

@takeachance - did you manage to find this?

@fullspeed - you still alive??? ;-)