T1 % to homepage

spunko2010

I never know what works best here. I usually go for 10-20% for each T1. Is there any reason to go higher/lower? My subpages convert but my homepage doesn't. So I'm just trying to make it look natural.

JudderMan

After the October 4th update, I'd be very careful about sending links to the homepage, if any at all. I don't send any now. If the on-page is good for homepage then it 'should' rank on its own from your backlinking the sub-pages.

spunko2010

Well I thought the opposite. What makes you say that about the Oct 4th update? I thought the reason I got slapped by Penguin 2.0 was due to too many links to inner pages.

JudderMan

Ah...I was the opposite. Had numerous sites slapped on 4th October, the only thing that was similar was too many homepage links - had to completely rejig my strategy (which worked a treat for 18 months).

My thoughts were that the homepage can only be optimised (on-page) for a limited amount of kws. Inner pages ie. cheaptvs.com/red-samsung-tv should try and rank for red Samsung TV, but the homepage should try and rank for 'cheap tvs' and not red Samsung tv. 

gooner

All my sites that were penalised were homepage SEO'd, so i would agree with @judderman
But i think there are other factors too.

coneh34d

What are your experiences with naked URLs (e.g. http://domain.com) percentages. Isn't a naked URL one of the most natural looking links there are?

JudderMan

Yup, I am big on naked links. If you optimise your pages perfectly, then it will rank with naked links only. 

I'm still testing variables but currently, 88% naked, 10% generic and 2% anchor on my tightly filtered projects.

spunko2010

88% naked????? holy sh*t I thought I was being over-generous with 35% and 35% generic.

gooner

I keep the anchor at 15% (consisting of at least 10 different anchors), i go naked url to 50% and 35% generic anchors.

For sure anchor text doesn't really matter any more but i'm a bit wary of going too high on the naked url too.

JudderMan

The way I think about it when people link to a site, they won't bother putting an anchor text. Bloggers might not either. Wikis, probably the same. Web 2.0 is the most likely to have anchor text and links to other sites (random links enabled in SER options).

I have lots of lead gen sites that are stupidly optimised with hidden text and a fancy image/HTML page over the top. Almost all naked links, smashing the SERPs, but in in my mind it's only because the on-page SEO is top notch. I can't even do the same for client sites or regular sites, but these lead gen sites work a treat this way.

As that works, I completely did a flip around on the whole naked link thing - which I refused to get into 12-18 months ago when people were talking about it. Now I implement it across the board. It might not work for you guys but it does for me, so I'll stick with it until it stops working.

spunko2010

Interesting. I usually go with 35% Generic (custom list), 35% naked and 15% secondary KWs, which use stop words. It works well for me, it's rare to have any single keyword at over 2% though. Do you think I'm cutting it too close? The way I see it in regatds to natural link profiles - based on analysis I've done myself only - is that a lot of them include words like 'here', 'on this site', 'this page' 'can find here' etc. Sven's list has some, but not all. So those are the ones I've added (+ about 100 more) to my generic list. Thankfully there are many resources that allow us to check what authority sites have as their natural link profile, I'm always copying my large competitors link structures.

gooner

@judderman- From the small testing i have done it doesn't really make much difference what the naked url % is. As long as the anchor isn't too high.Have you tried lowering it to see what happens?

2Take2

Interesting discussion.

Just throwing it out there, but in theory couldn't you have 100% anchor text if your backlink profile was made up of thousands of different terms? I mean does penguin actually analyse the ratios of generic, naked etc, or does it just look at general over optimisation in your link profile for certain terms?

spunko2010

^ Yes, I think it's more about ratios, a la Panda, it was all but confirmed that Google were analysing that then.

JudderMan

@2Take2 I suppose but I personally only try and rank 3-4 keywords per page, so I don't think that would work in my world.

@gooner I see your point, I have various projects that are all different %s but in different niches - like Spunko said I look at authority sites in the niche and copy but go one better. I'll keep tweaking and testing, though.

coneh34d

You know its funny. I just took a look at some of the authority sites that are ranking for competitive terms I am working for and their ratios are crap. The majority (3/5 of the top 5 spots) are held by companies using exact match terms to rank with. The balanced profiles make up the other 2/5, and they all look like they are pushing at least 30% anchors. I have to pull up complete reports.  

spunko2010

But authority sites play by different rules. Google gives them free reign to do whatever they want.

donchino

I guess the T1 % to homepage depends on the site to make it look natural. If you have lots of sub-pages that contain important content and kw-s to rank, then it is more links to them. I target only a few kw-s for a site and main content is on homepage, and my link building approach is more similar to what spunko2010 described here (naked, generic and kw ratios). I do like to provide useful content on my site so once traffic comes in they start linking and sharing themselves.