Is this spam? Use hyperlink to point some keywords to the page itself?

spam, keywords,

[johnlim9988]

Hi,

for example, if PageA target Keyword "big red widget", and at this page A

when appear "big red widget" in some sentences then we use hyperlink like,

<a href="http://www.example.com/pageA.html">big red widget</a> has four steps.......

Is this spam? Use hyperlink to point some keywords to the page itself?

Need or no need to add the hyperlink to highlight the keywords?

As I know, to use the hyperlink to point the keyword to another page should not be called spam, but I am not sure if use hyperlink to point the keyword to the page itself is spam or not.

Pls kindly help.

Thanks.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 2:09 am (utc) on July 2, 2007]
[edit reason] "examplified" & "widgetized" [/edit]

[Gede]

I saw a site, ranking in the top for big blue widget:

It has big blue widget repeated a zillion times on the page, and links to its index.htm ON index.htm

big blue widget green
big blue widget black
big blue widget brown
big blue widget yellow

Yes,I would say its spam.

Unfortunately a spam report didn't help.

[johnlim9988]

But I don't think it is spam, it is just used to emphasize.

[tedster]

The intention on any given page certainly can vary. Sometimes it is done as an SEO "trick" to get more keywords into anchor text as an on-page factor -- and I would consider that practice a form of webspam. But whether it's done by accident or intentionally, the idea of linking a url to itself is poor usability and does a disservice to visitors.

This practice of links that reload the same page has been making Jakob Nielson's list of bad website practices for many years. When someone clicks on a link, they expect to go to a different page -- or at least a named anchor on the same page -- not to reload the exact same thing the've already got.

[Gede]

John,

emphasizing is not bad, over-emphasizing is spam.

[Robert Charlton]

Sometimes it is done as an SEO "trick" to get more keywords into anchor text as an on-page factor -- and I would consider that practice a form of webspam. But whether it's done by accident or intentionally, the idea of linking a url to itself is poor usability and does a disservice to visitors.

<conjecture>

There's also the question of whether this practice is in any way effective. I tend to doubt that it is.

Surely, linking to the same page itself is like trying to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You're not likely to float off the ground no matter how hard you pull. We don't know whether the mechanisms in the Google algo and Newtonian mechanics, though, would be analogous... but there may well be parallels.

In the physical world, the "opposite reaction" to the force pulling upwards pushes you down, because of connection through your own body.

It probably wouldn't be too hard to program this Newtonian behavior into links, as well as into anchor text for those links.

</conjecture>

[johnlim9988]

Acturally before we have two pages now we integrate the two pages into one page, before we have links which point from page 1 to page 2 and from page 2 to page 1.

As we we integrate two pages, so we now have many links (which include keywords) point to the integrated page itself.

As we have too many such kind of two pages (cases), should we take out such kind of links point to itself?

Thanks!

[tedster]

Yes, I would say take those links out.

[johnlim9988]

Then can we use bold <b>keywords</b> to replace the hyper links <a href="http://www.example.com/thesamepage.html">keywords</a>?

Thanks.

[edited by: tedster at 6:32 am (utc) on July 2, 2007]
[edit reason] switch to example.com - it can never be owned [/edit]

[londrum]

if you're going to do it, you should at least try and point it to something real... like a subheading, or something

<a href="http://www.example.com/page.html#a">Widgets subheading A</a>
<a href="http://www.example.com/page.html#b">Widgets subheading B</a>

[johnlim9988]

yes, we also have some named anchor or sub-heading as you said in the page.

But we have many links point to the same page itself after integration.

Should we just take out those hyper links which point the same page or change the hyperlink to bold as I said before <b>keyword</b>?

Thanks.

[londrum]

the benefit that you get out of a word being in bold these days is practically zero. that might have helped back in the day, but you're not going to zoom up the rankings with it anymore. same probably goes for internal link text. the text on links coming from other sites to yours is still pretty important. but internal links aren't worth all that much anyway. so if they are messing up your design, and making it difficult for people to navigate around your site then i would just get rid of them. the benefit doesn't outweigh the cost.

[johnlim9988]

Maybe I just take out some links, also change some links to bolds for some keywords. Half -half try to see the effect.

I believe it should be consider as spam as I change some links to keywords as I just to catch the attention of the viewers.....

Is it right?

Thanks.

[Marcia]

I just removed and 301'd one page to another and used the link that used to point to the now removed page as a named anchor within the page that I left up. There *may* be links to the page I can't recall, so the 301 was in order rather than just have it be a 404.

IOW, there used to be /yellow-widgets/ and /yellow-widgets/stores.html with a link to the stores page from the /y-w/ index page with "yellow widgets stores" as the anchor text. So now it links to an H2 lower down on the same page as #widgets_stores using the same anchor text.

Yep, I do think it's kind of spammy (but I did it anyway), and might change the anchor to just "stores" and do the same with the anchor appendage, changing it to #stores instead, since it's probably over-kill and unnessary as it is now.

[johnlim9988]

Maybe I just take out some links, also change some links to bolds for some keywords (whih now have internal links to the page itself). Half -half try to see the effect.
I believe it should NOT be consider as spam as I change some links to BOLD keywords as I just to catch the attention of the viewers.....

Is it right?

Thanks.

(Sorry have some typo error before, so I post again)

[workingNOMAD]

Smells like tinned meat to me....

[johnlim9988]

what is the best way?
Thanks.

[tedster]

There's no reason to assume that there's a "best" way. You just make your choice and see what happens.

If I wanted to highlight certain words for my users all over the page, I would use the <span> tag. If you are mostly interested in search engines here, I doubt that using a lot of bold tags will be much of a help -- as others have said above. Use your mark-up in a natural way, and if there's a natural place to mark a word in bold, then fine.

[Miamacs]

As for the original question: yes it's spam. If you have the proper content you could break it down to subpages. IF you have the proper content that is. And it also involves more work.

...

If you use index.html#bluewidgets that's not spam.

Not only is it OK for users ( at least I prefer it to a subpage for everything ), but also those links don't count.

Example: go to your favorite site which uses anchor names, and check the first link's text that you're positive the page doesn't have an inbound with. You know how to...

site:www.example.com inanchor:"linktext only used on-page with #"

Of course the anchor text will still show up for regular searches as content. If that's OK. Or am I missing something?