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For example, if own Big Red Tires, then most people are going to link to me with the link text of "Big Red Tires". But did you realize Big Red is the largest seller of "Designer Wheels" and "Gold Valve Stems" in the World?
Chances are I won't be able to easily convince other websites to use link text other than "Big Red Tires". It seems my only choice will be to use my own (internal) links. I expect the best way to do this is to build a navigational footer with the important terms and add it to every page.
One other option would be to do some limited cross linking from other supporting domains I own, but this could be a little dangerous (unless they are one-way).
I'm curious what sort of tricks/tips you might offer in the area of link text?
Disclaimer: The Big Red Tires is only a parody used as an example. Though I sold tires when I was about 18 years old, I have no affiliation with tires now.
"So drive a little longer...tires will last a little longer. Get tires with longlasting treadness with Big Red!"
not very recent but related:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Don't be too quick to assume that. I have found that many webmasters are willing to include a few extra words if you simply suggest what you'd like. Example: "Big Red Tires: Designer Tires".
My approach is to provide two or maybe three suggestions for the link text and invite the other webmaster to choose whichever one would make the best spider food for their page, or to feel free to edit it to suit their page. The mention of spider food seems to make folks more wiling to use more words!
Reminds me of my sales days. Offer 3 alternatives and someone is more likely to choose one of the three rather than nothing at all or something different.
I've been examining how a large group of sites has been doing just this. The network is made up of about 5 or 6 sites each in various popular niches. The ones in the same niche cross-link with each other - all 5 or 6, on all the pages - with just one link to sites in another niche. Very cautiously done in a well thought out limited fashion, and the sites are doing well.
Link text uses keywords, but not all over and very conservatively. There's no doubt it's a talented SEO doing it it's so well done, but then again there's no permanent guarantee of survival.
There are also plenty of independent links out and in, particularly for one of the niche groups. I just found out that they refused to exchange links with the owner of one of the sites I work with in one niche because it's "competition," which is kind of amusing.
In researching I've also come across a huge group of affilate pages all cross-linked by navigation that's "almost" identical. All on an ISP account, with consistent PR thoughout but not optimized well enough to rank (keeps it off the radar), though one slipped through, which is how I found it. That's obviously for repetition of link text, and on examination it's obvious the purpose is to provide PR boosting for domain sites that have links sprinkled throughout those pages, but not in a consistent pattern. Also some admirably savvy SEO work there. It looks so random it's got to be well thought out.
It is working now, and probably will until the boost given by link text is devalued - though those sites are done so sparsely it's very hard to detect the interlinking patterns unless you're really digging around.
I didn't receive any strong affirmation that a simple navigation structure that targets keywords in the link text of the site was very important, but I hope it is because I would feel more vindicated of any SEO trickery using this method. I hope I'm wrong here.
the sites I develop use keywords in almost all link text and I'm in the top 10 for every keyword we are interested in.
I just redid a site doing this and it is currently tracking to have highest month of traffic in over a year...and only about 1/3 of the new work has been indexed at this point.
Oh, it's very important within a site. But that's a different issue than utilizing external domains for increasing occurrences of link text, and cross-linking patterns between sites is yet another issue.
For example, if I were listing airlines, I might do something like this:
United Airlines
American Airlines
America West
Here America West is at a disadvantage.
Or sometimes it just sounds better to abbreviate:
Airtran sounds better than Airtran Airlines
If you check the search results for "airlines", you'll see the SERPS support my argument.
My point: Some company names are automatically at a disadvantage.
You almost have to throw out the company name and start over. Imagine trying to optimize for a law firm named "Malmstien, Ingve, and Van Halen" that specializes in personal injury. You might as well just forget the name of the company and be sure you don't even display the name, so link partners don't use terms that will be harmful to your optimization.
google could ignore any anchortext that equals url or company name in its algorithm and instead - in those cases - take surrounding text, or it could take the average www equalling of anchortext towards url/company name and discount that.
In any case, its just one search query where America West looses out, but a very important one.
There is a weakness here:
If your company name does not include the main keyword for your industry, you are at a disadvantage.
In the example above, these are obviously names that you already know, but I assure you there are many examples where you won't find what you are looking for because of link text manipulation.
But wait...I still have to tie this into the subject of the thread:
Are there cases where it's better to:
1) Get a new domain
2) Create allied domains for the purpose of utilizing link text optimization
?
...recent surge in importance of link text.
Far from recent. In fact, if there is going to be less importance placed on it, I would argue that we are closer to that end of the spectrum because the majority is finally catching on.
As far as I know, link text is one of the top 3 criteria in the algorithm. If you disagree, I would be interested to know what you feel is more important (e.g. titles, backlinks, H1 tags, url, etc.)
If there has been a decrease (in importance), I haven't seen much evidence. Are there any examples you could provide?
It's gone a bit overboard in that direction, it's getting so there's a lot of fluff created to increase instances of link text. What would help some is if there had to be corroborating elements on the linking page - and pages linking to the linking page as well, back a hop or two - factored in to give the link text scoring value.
I've got a page ranking nicely that has no text at all on the page - none whatsoever. It's just a demo type of page, and this happened quite by accident.
In the cache it says that the search term only appears on pages linking to it. That is not the case - only one word out of the 3-word phrase is used, which is in the singular mind you, not the plural form the page is ranking for, only in an alt attribute of an image leading to that page. And another of the words is in a text link on a page linking to the page with image that links to the page with nothing on it.
It goes back two clicks (actually a bit further, link wise) and neither has the exact phrase. But it's very much in contextual relevance, and is one of the more interesting things that's been noticed lately that'll be worth playing with a bit.
Please reread my post. I never said that link text is not important or not one of the top criteria. To the contrary, I am saying that because so many people are finally catching on to the fact that it is so important I would argue that we are closer to it becoming less important to the ever evolving algorithm than more important...only time will tell.
Marcia,
You're a great writer. That's a great point you made about pages that do well for a search term but don't even contain the term! I've also encountered a new sort of spam utilizing this technique. Note: I'm not calling you a spammer.
SlyOldDog,
I'm guessing the next algorithm area will be based on Google Sets (and I hope this will make a spammers job even more difficult).
You may be right. If you are we might as well pack up and go home. SEO will definately enter the realms of art and not science then.
It will be nearly impossible to reverse engineer an algorithm like that!
SlyOldDog, I could have been clearer, but that's exactly what I was trying to get at. Corroborating factors.
>>This would kill off a lot of pages set up for reciprocal links. And a good thing too!
It could make things a bit more time-consuming and/or expensive to have done. Some sites out there would have to be torn apart and re-done so the navigation and structure actually makes sense. ;)
People still figure out ways around, some always do; but it would make some things harder. It wouldn't be quite as easy to slap unrelated pages on a site. That might still work for a PR boost (which can tend to make a site look good), but for overall ranking it sure would make things more interesting.
>>encountered a new sort of spam utilizing this technique
OK, then there is something tangible to it
OT:
>>not calling you a spammer
I've been called worse. If I could post the URL you'd be ROFL. Strictly an accident on a little "mental health" site that's out there just for fun. What a fascinating game of cat and mouse this is!
Take note Google. If Marcia is right you may be creating a monster!
