Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
A couple years ago I added 6 text links in the header across a 500 page site. It seemed to really help those pages rank well in Google for that anchor text. That appears to no longer be the case. I am looking for some feedback related to internal linking best practices as I assess and re-deploy a new internal linking strategy. Below are questions, rhetorical questions, and experiences related to the topic.
-What is the risk/benefit of using the same alt="keyword phrase" on the header image on every page in the site that links to the homepage? Is there a risk or advantage in varying the alt text for this image link across the 500 page site? We have inconsistencies in this area - I'd imagine that the same image should have the same alt text, and anything else could be construed as manipulation? Does Google think like that?
-I have several pages that all have the same internal link anchor text pointing to them. I am assuming this is not a good thing, and I should point all the links with 'keyword phrase' as the anchor text to the page with that is the first most relevant match for that 'keyword phrase', the keyword phrase page. What if the homepage is ranking the highest for this term? Should I point all 'keyword phrase' anchors to the 1st most relevant page, which itself linked to from the homepage? Would it be better to point all the links directly to the homepage because it is ranking the highest for the keyword phrase?
-Instead of 'run of site' text links I am placing links only on pages relevant to that keyword. This will dramatically cut down the total number of internal links to a particular page, but the referring pages will all be relevant. Quality vs Quantity?
-Text links in the footer across the 500 page site.... I did some searches for a couple long tail keyword phrases in anchor text in the footer across the site and noticed we ranked nowhere for those queries. If quantity of internal links with the keyword phrase were a huge factor you'd think sheer number of internal links alone would boost a long tail keyword phrase on a quality site to the top of the SERPs, right? Is this evidence that sitewide internal links could be hurting ranking? Could a sitewide footer link for 'keyword phrase' actually hurt our ranking for 'keyword phrase' because there are SO many links regardless of referring page relevancy?
-Is a preferred internal linking architecture Homepage with links for 'KW1', 'KW2', 'KW3' to the internal most relevant pages respectively, then internal links from relevant pages on the site pointing to the kw1, kw2, k3 page? Should the Kw1, kw2, kw3, point back to the homepage with the very same anchor text the homepage points to them with? That kinda doesn't make sense to link back to the homepage.
-What anchor text should be used when linking to the homepage internally? The top KW phrase? "Home"? What if there is a more specifc, relevant page than the homepage on the site, which is probably the case on most sites?
I'd really appreciate insight you'd be willing to share. I am trying to conceptualize and refine the strategy before starting to change links. Trying to create a blue print for a game plan.
Thanks!
Greg
A couple years ago I added 6 text links in the header across a 500 page site. It seemed to really help those pages rank well in Google for that anchor text. That appears to no longer be the case. I am looking for some feedback related to internal linking best practices as I assess and re-deploy a new internal linking strategy. Below are questions, rhetorical questions, and experiences related to the topic.-What is the risk/benefit of using the same alt="keyword phrase" on the header image on every page in the site that links to the homepage? Is there a risk or advantage in varying the alt text for this image link across the 500 page site? We have inconsistencies in this area - I'd imagine that the same image should have the same alt text, and anything else could be construed as manipulation? Does Google think like that?
-I have several pages that all have the same internal link anchor text pointing to them. I am assuming this is not a good thing, and I should point all the links with 'keyword phrase' as the anchor text to the page with that is the first most relevant match for that 'keyword phrase', the keyword phrase page. What if the homepage is ranking the highest for this term? Should I point all 'keyword phrase' anchors to the 1st most relevant page, which itself linked to from the homepage? Would it be better to point all the links directly to the homepage because it is ranking the highest for the keyword phrase?
Couple of questions for the original poster:
>>using the same alt="keyword phrase" on the header
In addition to the header graphic having the same alt= text at the top of pages, is there any other text at the top of the pages (code-wise) that's repeated sitewide or across multiple pages or sections?
On the same note, and if so, is a substantial part of the site getting hit with the "very similar results" phenomenon?
>>all the links with 'keyword phrase' as the anchor text to the page
Are there multiple repetitions of that same "keyword phrase" as anchor text on the same page, on pages linking to the target page? i.e. is there a lot of anchor text redundancy on pages? (This was a factor in the Florida phenomenon 4 years ago - and still can be.)
>>several pages that all have the same internal link anchor text pointing to them
Is that part of the page navigation (top, left, right or footer?), or are those links within the body text of the pages - what Eisenberg calls the "active window?"
[edited by: Marcia at 10:20 pm (utc) on Aug. 28, 2007]
On the same note, and if so, is a substantial part of the site getting hit with the "very similar results" phenomenon?"
-The header graphic used across the 500+ pages uses varying alt= text. I would imagine this would be grounds for an 'over-optimization' flag since you'd think the same image should have the same alt text, right? The only reason it wouldn't be consistent is if you were trying to get different keywords on the page. Does anyone know this theory to be true? I am going to go through the site and establish consistent alt text for the header image - but what should it be, the site's most relevant keyword phrase?
-I don't think there are too many similar elements in the tops of the pages, especially since a majority of the site was converted to really thin xhtml/css, so percentage wise there are a lot of differences between files. unique content to template code ratio seems good.
>>all the links with 'keyword phrase' as the anchor text to the page
"Are there multiple repetitions of that same "keyword phrase" as anchor text on the same page, on pages linking to the target page? i.e. is there a lot of anchor text redundancy on pages? (This was a factor in the Florida phenomenon 4 years ago - and still can be.)"
-On one site, there definitely are pages with 3-4 occurrences of the same 'keyword' as anchor text on each page. Way overboard. That site is struggling in the rankings. On the main site I am posting about, there isn't much repetition.
>>several pages that all have the same internal link anchor text pointing to them
"Is that part of the page navigation (top, left, right or footer?), or are those links within the body text of the pages - what Eisenberg calls the "active window?" "
-I am basically noticing that throughout the site anchor text 'keyword phrase' links to one of about six different pages. Shouldn't all the links with the same anchor text point to a single page, the page that is deemed most relevant to that anchor text? Would having links to multiple pages with the same 'keyword phrase' anchor text draw negative attention, or at minimum, dilute the 'juice'?
-In a lot of cases, a text link appears in the footer. Additionally, a text link may appear with the same anchor text in the body or 'active' area of the page.
I am going to go through the site and establish consistent alt text for the header image - but what should it be, the site's most relevant keyword phrase?
With my white hat on - Heck, no!
The alt text for an image should be directly relevant to the image - assuming it is an image of words, included to look prettier than plain text, then the alt text should match the words in the banner.
Other options are 'company logo' style alt for pure graphics
Remember that the prime use of alt text is to help people using a non-graphic browser.
This is why the engine bots look on alt text that doesn't fulfil this purpose as spammy - its trying to mislead them.
So obviously its important to chose the wording of your banners properly :)
My Widgets
Good * Hot * Sexy
(ok, probably not useful keywords there... ;))
The opening post also brings up the issue of links with the same exact anchor text, but pointing to several different urls in the domain. That's something I try to avoid, because it seems to me it just blurs the site's architecture in the agorithm's view. Some articulation of the difference between various target pages can be helpful.
Iwouldn't obsess about this point, however. Unless you've put together a portfolio of doorway pages (and you wouldn't do that, would you?) there's a natural tendency to have some difference in anchor text between different target urls.
I am going through the site to make sure the target page for a particular anchor phrase is consistent. I don't mind if anchor variations point to the same target phrase, but I completely agree with your 'blurring the site architecture' idea. Makes sense.
Thanks,
Greg
I don't mind if anchor variations point to the same target phrase
Isn't that even worse as far as tripping Google's spam filter?
