Anchor text in back links

[alexeyryb]

Everybody knows we need to insert some keywords to anchor text link from other sites.
I've recently heard that Google reduce rankings if your site has the same keywords in links from other sites.
I mean if you have "blue widgets" anchor text only from your link partners then Google filter will recognize it and reduce you position by this keyword.
Is it true?
Should I have about ten anchor text keywords for the link swapping?
What is the anchor text tactic?

[ThomasB]

alexeyryb, there are some rumors that 100% anchor text density might hurt your rankings.
I would always go for what's best for your users and build content sites that get own, natural links with anchor texts that are different from your "optimized" anchor text. But If that's not possible I'd look around and see which anchor texts your competitors have and try to build the same, but many more to rank higher than they do. :)

[Sathish]

>Is it true?

No! it is not true.

I have a site ranking well which was optimized for 100% for the same anchor text.

But keep changing your kw's to improve your rankings evenly for all kw's. which would ultimately increase your traffic.

[marttali]

Would it be a good idea to have anchor texts like this: Lets assume you are targeting "blue widgets" so ask your partners to link to you with anchor texts like those
"affordable blue widgets"
"great blue widgets"
"best price for blue widgets"

and maybe through a little bit semantics in
"blue cadgets"

and so on..

This idea any good?

[webnewton]

Using anchor text in accordance with LSI would be the best bet.

[trillianjedi]

This idea any good?

Yes.

With the odd straight domain reference thrown in for good measure.

TJ

[mfishy]

Forget for a moment about what is going to draw a penalty and think about rankings. If you are hoping for traffic on widgets, why not have anchor for best widgets, cheap widgets, buy widgets, etc...many terms convert well and you still get the benefit if having "widgets" in the anchor.

AS far as penalties go, Google is ceratinly attempting to look harder and harder at what appears to be quality, natural sites as opposed to cookie cutter, SEO sites. The way they do this is by looking for signals of quality as well as signals of "junk". There are too many to list, but one logical signal of junk is a site with 100% identical anchor text - no domain.com, click here, anything...obviously spam...