allinanchor search

what's it good for?

[MeditationMan]

Has anyone found a use for the allinanchor search feature? And can you give examples of how you've managed to make those results useful?

So far my searches for "allinanchor:widgets" have thrown up results that are virtually identical to searches for "widgets". I'm sure the "allinanchor" feature must have a use, but so far I haven't been able to find out what it is. I dislike having a tool that I don't know how to use properly.

Bodhipaksa

[lazerzubb]

Allinachor: is very usefull, mostly because you can tell how important anchor text is when it comes to inbound links.

I know that i've optimised a site good when i have much less inbound links that the other sites, and i use allinanchor:my keyword and sees that with the allinchor commando my page ends up with a #15 rank for example, but with the normal search i end up #5, this means that i have optimised the "On the page" better than the other sites (or the've just done it worse).

So if you end up with a higher position with the allinanchor: commando i would suggest that you a look at your site and see what more you can do on it.

And if Google decides to change anything in their algorithm which would have a big impact it would probably be the importance of the anchortext in inbound links, with this commando you can easily track this.

[MeditationMan]

Hmm ... I just did a search for "widget" (literally) and "allinanchor:widget". Both sets of top 10 results are identical.

If what you're saying is correct, Laserzubb, then nothing any of these ten sites has done on the page has overcome the effect of keywords in anchor links. That seems unlikely. It would mean none of the optimization we do apart from getting keywords into inward links makes any difference.

I've done this comparison with "buddhism" and "allinanchor:buddhism" (not a term relevant to my site, but of personal interest to me) and found exactly the same thing. Both sets of top ten results are identical. Same for other search terms I've tried.

Can you show me an actual example of a search that produces different results for the two searches?

Anyone else found the allinanchor feature to be useful?

Bodhipaksa

[coconutz]

For one particular 2 word phrase we're ranked #3 in the SERP's, but using allinanchor:keyword phrase we're #40.

check your stickymail

[MeditationMan]

Coconutz is right (he gave me an example by sticky mail -- thanks, dude!) -- two word searches do throw up different results. I did a search with a two-keyword term relevant to me and although the results were very close, one result cropped up with the keyterms alone that wasn't there when allinanchor was used.

But why should single word searches bring up identical (or near-identical) results with or without "allinanchor"? And why have 90% of the results been the same even with a two keyword search? It does suggest either that the allinanchor results don't tell us very much or that they tell us a lot -- i.e. that key words in link text are more important than any other area of SEO.

This conclusion does go against the grain, since I've had sites that have jumped from #50 to #1 just by changing the title.

[vitaplease]

MeditationMan,

title is important, but if you are in a competitive area (millions results or more) that alone will never get you to number one.

Google thinks off-page factors are most important, because they are often more authorative and - more importantly - independant.

Single word search queries have such a high chance of occuring in an anchortext and on the target page, that on-page factors really matter little.

For two word search queries you do see more variations, although my observation is that if you do better in a normal search than in an allanchor search this does not mean your on-page factors are necessarily better.

Things that come to mind there are which proportion of the anchortext is from an external (independant) site, and which part is internal. In my opinion external anchortexts are more important and rightly so (more independant).

[quiet_man]

mmm, I'm not sure how exactly, but it seems that Freshness may play a part somehow. Checking some of my regular keyphrases with the allinanchor: command seems to return SERPs that are not affected by Fresh listings. I don't mean that allinanchor: search results don't include a date next to Fresh sites, just that it doesn't seem to affect their ranking compared to the normal SERPs.

Does that make sense? Anyone else seeing it?! Does that explain why changing a title helped a site jump in the SERPs (ie. it was the fact that *something* was changed, not the detail of the change, that prompted the higher Fresh ranking)?

[annej]

I'm not doing this search right because when I put "allinanchor:widgets" in my google search box the only link I get is this thread here on webmasterworld. I tried other terms and got nothing.

What am I doing wrong?

Anne

[lazerzubb]

Be sure not to use the quotes ("").

A example:
[google.com...]

[egomaniac]

The less competitive the keyword, the more on-page optimization determines the ranking.

The more competitive the keyword, the more off-page factors determines the ranking.

Its pretty simple when you think about it. Competitive keywords are going to have a lot of pages with good content, many of which will be optimized to some degree. Inbound linking is more difficult to "optimize", and hence plays more of a determining role. Less competitive keywords generally aren't linked up very much (or at all in some cases). So on-page factors rule in those cases.

[annej]

Thanks Lazerzub! I should have thought of that myself.

MedMan, I am finding a difference if I use my top 2 word search phrase bit not my top single key word. That fits what people are saying here.

Now let me get this straight. When I search

allinanchor:my key words

am I finding only the links that actually use a word found within my title tags in the text within their link tags?

Sometimes I feel so clueless.

Anne

[lazerzubb]

>>am I finding only the links that actually use a word found within my title tags in the text within their link tags?

The anchor text is the text that makes the link.

For example:
<A HREF="http://www.webmasterworld.com">Click here to learn more about webmaster issues</A>

The text in black is the anchor text, and that's what the commando uses, so it doesn't have anything to do with what's on your page, it's only due to the anchor text in your inbound links.

[instand1]

Even for internal links the anchor text is important: A competitor has a not well optimized site (if I look at his titles and keyword density) but he has the keyword "widget brand x" on ten of his pages. The pages have many photos, nothing special from SEO point of view. He is doing well on 3-word search phrases in Google, even if the third word is not in the anchor, but in the title, not once in the body.

[Terrier]

This is such good infomation.I just did a search for a single keyword that is important to me. The results were very different from a normal search. I am way down in the results with the allinanchor but do well with a normal search.

From this I presume I need to work on the internal link text within my site and of course make sure that sites that link to mine have the keyword in the link text (which I have been doing)

Please correct me if I have got this wrong.

[ciml]

So does allinanchor: filter out pages that don't have any matching anchor text, or does it rank according to the anchortext? I think the latter.

Terrier, yes single words are almost always harder. Good anchor text (internal and external) is a big help as things get more competitive.

[Terrier]

Thanks for the reply CIML, good so I need to work on my anchor text now. I presume external text is the most important and internal is also crucial. So if I am ranking well with poor anchor text, a tweek to the internal text will make all the difference for my single keyword.

[ciml]

Yes Terrier, the tweak could help. I recently found out (to my surprise) that a link counts more if from an external domain. This is not the case for PageRank.

[Terrier]

I understand that a vote for a page from an external domain counts for more.

"Not the case for page rank" I am not clear what you mean.

[ciml]

Terrier, I mean that the PageRank transferred is the same whether the link is from the same domain or not.

[aek]

Hi Ciml, You seem to be the expert on this subject so I was wondering would 10 links from the same external domain equal 1 link from 10 different external domains? (assuming pagerank of those pages were equal)

[MeditationMan]

Did someone say "off topic"? Time for a new thread, perhaps.