Not requesting specific link text

a more natural set of links?

[mangotude]

I have a site which i've been doing link promotion on - but I've not been asking for any specific text - In my initial email I include a brief description of the site, but that's it.

The site itself is fairly focused on a specific, so I'm finding that the bulk of links added are generally the words I wanted anyway, but they seem to be looking like a link that someone has added 'naturally', and with a 'natural' spread of keywords.

Does anyone do a similar thing? I would guess for some sites this wouldn't work.

[sugarrae]

I do this for a ton of sites. I assign some anchors myself but for a percentage of links (usually when I am requesting a one way) I never send linking details and allow them to name the link whatever they want. Works for me.

[gdguide]

Same thing here kind of. : )

I give them an option, or give them a slightly different keyword. So I have about 6-7 different keywords coming in one way. I think the 2 way 1 keyword link is dead. That's why some people are getting fried on this latest update.

Brian

[Rick42]

gd guide,

I couldn't agree with you more. Luckily, I adopted this technique shortly before the update, and I believe that is why my fall wasn't too bad.

IMHO, there really isn't that much one can "work on" with regards to SEO: you optimize your site's pages, build the best content you can (keeping in mind users not spiders :P) and let natural links come in. Of course, you can build links manually, but just like you would normally, without worrying about SEO. In other words, large link building campaigns, with tons of low quality sites, reciprocal, and obvious link building techniques for SEO purposes is far from worth anything anymore.

Google obviously has mapped out natural link structures, and are rewarding site's with those.

On top of helping the rankings, you are targeting a larger pool of keywords and so, will get more traffic for that as well ;) ..if you get some rankings that is.

[ken_b]

I've had a say in the anchor text used to link to my site maybe 10 times.

Many of my "natural" incoming links just use my site name/home page url, usually these are found on some links/resources/favorite sites typ of page.

Another big group of naturals use a url style anchor text leading to an interior page on my site. Those are mostly on forum pages.

Other (scraper) links to my site are all over the place, but often (usually, always, who checks?) use a url style link directly to some interior page on my site.