Forum Moderators: open
I have a fairly new site. So far,
ALL of the inbound links I have pointing at the
home page.
Now, that home page is optimized for one main
2-word phrase. "keyword one".
However, I included all of the inbound links with
3 different sets of keywords.
(My product - keyword one), (my product - keyword two),etc
Now, I have a separate page totally optimized for keyword two, but with no incoming links.
In the recent update, when you do a search for
"keyword two", it actually ranks my home page
higher than the keyword-two-optimized page!
There is almost no mention of that keyword at all
on the home page, yet the anchor text made it pull ahead.
Emphasize that anchor text guys, it matters.
-Neil
(does anyone else here DESPISE writing and reading about
pages without using the real keywords? I refused to mention widgets.)
kw = keyword
optimized = standard title, alt tags, H1, etc
Let's draw a picture:
Home Page....................Extra Page
---------------------------------------
optimized for kw-1 only......optimized for kw-2 only
incoming links for kw-1......no incoming links at all
incoming links for kw-2
incoming links for kw-3
in a search for "kw-2", the home page ranks
higher than the extra page.
-Neil
Neil,
I occasionally visit other webmaster related forums, and do not stay there very long. WebmasterWorld goes out of its way to prevent what Brett calls Professional Forum Spammers [webmasterworld.com]. It does lead to convoluted posts, but I, for one, believe that the resulting increase in forum quality is worth the price.
Let me strongly suggest that you read that thread. It will help you understand why WebmasterWorld operates the way it does.
It certainly does. Search for "best viewed" without the quotes.
But also note that the home page almost certainly has a higher PR than the extra page. Alas, nothing is simple in the World fo Google.
[edited by: Mohamed_E at 10:07 pm (utc) on April 13, 2003]
But also very important:
listing, ranking for your keywords. How is competition in SERPS, how they build their sites / pages, aso. Structure and amount of other pages of your site related to your home /your keywords. Internal backlinks containing keywords ...
Sorry but it isn't so easy.
nquinn, blue widgets are your friend. It's a shortcut language, a path of least resistance and a phrase of instant comprehension. Do yourself a favor, we have so much resistance, so many things to grasp, overcome, conquer, the little blue widget is simply the express train of communication. The blue widget exists only to help you. The red widget, I'm not so sure. The pink widget has other motivations and the green widget definitely just wants your money. The purple widget, wow, now there's a good time. The blue widget is your only true friend.
Emphasize that anchor text guys, it matters.
When "Google Bombing" first came to light, I tested the following exact phrase search: "Click Here"
Try this search. I don't think the results will surprise you. In fact, you might find it amusing. :)
Thanks
Trodda
allinanchor:kw phrase
I'm confused about something. Neil, do your links from KW-2 back to the homepage use anchor text related to KW-2, or related to the homepage?
On our end, we have examples where the KW-2 page does come up much higher than the homepage for the KW-2 search phrase...
I don't get why the homepage would come up for the KW-2 search unless the anchor text of the backlinks on KW-2 to the homepage were related to KW-2 content.
Wack
See Disney & Yahoo surprisingly high? Wonder why? It's all the adult content sites with "I am under 18" that throw you at disney.com or yahoo.com.
There's an untapped PR market there guys, get all the adult webmasters you know to change their "I am under 18" links to your site ;) So long as it's not adult! :D
Ok, i might be drawing a fairly long bow here but if say you rank page 6 for your keyword and then when you do a search for allinanchor:kw phrase you rank page 2 could you conclude to any degree that your links and link setup (keywords in anchor)is good but other factors need work.
Also....looking at it in reverse. You rank better for your keyword than when you do a allinanchor:kw phrase check....meaning to get up there higher work on your links and their anchor text as it appears your other factors are doing well.
Not saying its a hard and fast rule but would be interested in peoples thoughts.
Cheers
You could try borrowing the "purple penguins" hypothetical search term that I have used here many times before. I came up with "purple penguins" because "widgets", particularly as it is commonly used at Webmasterworld, is referring to an e-commerce site that sells widgets. I use "purple penguins" to refer to some hypothetical information site, as obviously nobody is selling purple penguins, and since penguins aren't ordinarily purple actual penguin sites aren't about the purple species. Thus, when I refer to optimizing for "purple penguins", this means getting an info site to do well in the SERPs. The dynamics of optimizing for info sites tends to be significantly different than commercial sites. Info sites tend not to be very SEO conscious, thus by using honest SEO correctly usually you can get them to do well. Also, info sites don't have the problem of having to do well is SERPs where dishonest spammers are using tricks to get to the top. Thus commercial sites tend to need to use different SEO strategies, while simultaneously managing not to cross the line where they can get the Google death penalty.
And by widget, we're talking about Bob in the beer? Right? Or (as was just suggested to me?) is it the american term for gadget?
I would be much more interested in peoples thoughts on things, like my previous post...no 16. It seems discussing widgets is more popular than looking at something that may or may not effect our rankings in google.
I must admit lately i have noticed that i sometimes have to post a follow up message to my original message to get someone to answer it in a serious manner that may be of value to people on this forum. It doesn't happen often but i feel more often than six months ago. Not sure why but it's just something i have noticed. I would also like to add that i think this forum is brilliant....i love it. i dont mean to be critticle, just an observation.
I would also like to congratulate all the people that take time out to reply in so much detail....and so often. You see a lot of the same names often and i think it would be great if we could recognise those people for the huge effort they put in. they are the ones that add true value to this board and make it great.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts on my question....as well as listening to my point of view.
searched google: site:webmasterworld.com +"forum3/" +"allinanchor"
Buckley: I second that emotion!
Re your question, we also agree that while it's not exact, you basic conclusion is confirmed in our work.
I would also like to restate a question I asked above, even though I think VinceVinceVince may have answered...
We had assumed that most of the importance of inbound links had to do with the PR of linking page, and the anchor text of the linking page...but perhaps we didn't pay enough attention to the Content of the linking page...
Example:
We have page on penguins. Inbound anchor text from another site's PR 6 page (titled "Penguins") has anchor text to us that says "Penguin Information". But, also on the page that links to us, we see high keyword density for "killer whales."
Will this link help us on searches for "killer whales" - or just "penguins"?
Appreciate any input. If we missed this...feeling a bit stupid all the sudden.
If I search for "othersitename" I can't find myself in the top 100 results. You would think my site would be called a related resource or similar site because of all of the incoming links.
If you reverse the search and look at my "similar sites" according to Google, these unrelated sites appear because of the incoming links. But it did not up my relevance for their terms.
I noticed huge differences in the search results after the recent update, and the differences lead me to believe google has changed something to give more weight to anchor text.
Of course I'm displeased that this change has hurt me, but since I don't depend on my site for any income the loss is that of Internet searchers, not my own loss.
Let me explain. My site about widgets has a huge amount of totally unique material that is copyright and not available anywhere else on the Internet. It is truly unique. Part of my site deals with "great big widgets." Up until this update, a search for "great big widgets" provided a nice selection of pages about widgets, quite a wide variety. I was among the top 20.
But something has happened. The fact that I have slipped about 10 points isn't critical, but the change in results is. Someone has written a well-publicized book called exactly "Great Big Widgets." of course the links always have these exact same words in them, so the anchor text factor is huge.
So following the most recent update, a search for "great big widgets" will get you full pages of results that all point to the exact same type of resource . . . all book dealers who are selling the book, "Great Big Widgets." This is a loss for users who are searching for information and do not wish to buy that specific book.
Anyway, for what it's worth I feel that the heavier weighting of anchor text, in this case, creates a poorer range of results.
