Back link anchor text

importance of exact wording?

[annej]

It is important that anchor text is exactly the same as the title of a page for example:

"California's Widgeting History" is the anchor phrase in most of the external and internal inbound links to a webpage. Is it important to title the page exactly the same phrase?

California's Widgeting History
instead of
Widgeting History of California

I would like add weight to widgeting as it is the main keyword I want to optimize for the page. But if having the words in the page title in a different order than incoming anchor hurts than perhaps I should leave it as California's Widgeting History

I guess what I am wondering is if it's having the exact phrase that matters most or simply if the key word or phrase I want to optimize for is in both inbound anchor text and the page title.

Anyone have some thoughts on this?

[millie]

It's better not to have all your inbound links showing the same anchor text as this just looks suss. Try to vary the text, incorporating your main keyword or kw phrase but also try to get inbound links with synonyms of your main kw phrase.

To get ideas for synonyms search Google like this:

~your main keyword

If you set your preferences to 100 results per page you'll quickly pick up on which alternative words Google highlights. This shows that Google recognises these words as also applying to your industry so you will benefit from incoming links that broaden your appeal beyond just your one kw phrase.

Hope this helps

[annej]

The links to this site have gradually built up since 1998 so some are stated differently but most are the 'whatever widgeting history' text. There is not much I can do to change those outside links but my big concern is if my making the title to the homepage in a different order "widgeting history of whatever" will devalue the most common anchor link of 'whatever widgeting history'. I don't know if I am making sense on this.

I can control my internal links though and will take up your suggestion to vary my inbound internal links a bit.

[houseofsecrets]

>>To get ideas for synonyms search Google like this:
>>
>>~your main keyword

that's the tip of the week for me...

[Craig_F]

sounds like a simple change, why not just try it for a bit and see what works best?

I do know some people like the title to match the achor text exactly, but I'm not sure of the effects since I tend to get nervous when things match too well so I've never tried it.

[mark1615]

I would love to know the answer to this question too. For the main keywords on a few of our sites (different kws) the ~key word returns almost no synonyms. I think that is quirk relating just to these particular terms. But I have often wonders whether for instance, blue widgets online as anchor instead of blue widgets would still count towards the optimization of the term blue widgets.

[Craig_F]

blue widgets online as anchor instead of blue widgets would still count towards the optimization of the term blue widgets

both versions would count.

[annej]

why not just try it for a bit and see what works best?

I’m going to take your advise and do just that. Does anyone know how long it will take to be able to tell what effect my changes have? I miss the good old days of the Google dance when each month I could see the results of my efforts.

both versions would count

Thanks, I think I had the idea of the necessity of exact anchor text from early discussions on the topic. It makes more sense to me that any key words in the anchor would be what counts.

[Craig_F]

annej,

just a reminder not to have google googles on while testing this out. exact anchor text might work well in google, but drop you off the map elsewhere, which you probably don't want.

anyone know how long it will take to be able to tell what effect my changes have?

these days, I think this highly dependent on your site. I have a couple sites where I see effects the next day, others I wait for quite a while.

[annej]

my main pages seem to get updated every couple of days. It can take a few days for new pages to get listed. But what I am wondering is how long it takes for Google to look at all sites and backlinks and reposition serps.

[Craig_F]

how long it takes for Google to look at all sites and backlinks and reposition serps.

I guess I'm missing something then...I thought we were talking about you testing changing your title tag, not backlinks. So, how Google looks at backlinks shouldn't matter since in your case that is over and done with.

I thought you were wondering when Google would pick up the test of making your title tag perfectly match the anchor text of the majority of your backlinks...no?

[Craig_F]

Now that I wrote that last post I think I see what you are saying. I was thinking that once Google indexed your new title tag your test would be pretty much good to go, but you are thinking Google needs to go over everything again before you see the effects, correct?

If so, I guess I'm not sure on that. In the past I've seen the changes I expected once Google indexes the new pages (and rankings seem to change, which don't always coincide but often seem to for me), however I've not really looked back to see what happened after the links got indexed again. Although, I can say that nothing but improvements have happened, or I would have noticed.

[annej]

I guess I was thinking it might happen in two steps. The title change could affect serps right away but then when Google matches up anchor link and all it might cause another change. It's been a few days and changing the order of title words doesn't seem to have made any difference so I guess I'll wait a month and see what happens overall. There may not be much I can do to improve on that keyword.

At least thinking about this got me going on my other pages and I've worked on optimizing them for key phrases. Most of my visitors come in to lesser pages through 2 word phrases anyway.

[caveman]

IMHO, if you want to climb to the top, everything matters.

FWIW, re your specific question, my observation has been that exact matches between backlinks and title work better with the other SE's. With G, you can often be better off mixing it up a bit. Too much repetition seems to irk them, a bit. :-)