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As it stands now, the link text is "free blue widgets" which is exactly what the site is about.
Potentially there will be thousands of these links out there and I'm under the impression that this can cause penalties.
Is this true? And if it is, what strategy should I use to avoid it?
My thoughts are to change the linking instructions on the signup page from time to time. So that I would have periods where the new users are putting a slightly different link up, like "free widgets," "blue widgets," "large free widgets," "large free blue widgets," "domain-name.com," etc.
So in theory, I would end up with say 100 inbound links for any given phrase.
Or could this cause penalties too?
Would I be better of just having an image to link to?
Signed,
Google paranoiac
1.If that is the case then your company name would not bring you up in a search if it was the anchor text of every link.
2.You could hurt your competition.
3.Use "Yahoo" as an example. They have hundreds of thousands of links that just say "Yahoo"
By "used properly" I mean don't go cramming your anchor text links with tons of keywords. Doing so may not actually trigger a penalty (as already stated that would mean that a competitor could harm you) but I would imagine it would not count as highly towards your overall positioning in the SERPS.
The best way to incorporate anchor text is by page title. That's what dmoz and google do. And keep those title tags short simple and in no way spammy.
TJ
I feel relieved, but I wonder how I got this idea in my head.
It seems as though it's been discussed here before but I don't remember the exact threads. Had I thought it was going to be a concern, I would have flagged them.
Anyway, I may have just been misreading them.
Mostly, I was always under the quiet impression it was made up to see how many people they could trick into actually de-optimizing their sites!
Then they were not so clueless were they ;)
Right now there is no penalty for using <Ahem>.... Good Anchor text. And I don't think there would be any future penalties for using them. But they can always decrease their importance in ranking Criteria :)
I think you will be safe with identical text links coming from lots of external sites
I was amazed to see that many people were musing a penalty like this when external links are generally beyond the control of the site owner. The idea might have come from those members who have very commercial sites and ONLY receive external links from recips or exchanges or directories. In the great majority of cases beyond the affiliate, commercial or shopping spheres (and maybe bloggers), links are much more likely to be one way, with anchor text being the other site wants, (and unsolicited) than reciprocal.
One of our sites names is say, "Witches in Transylvania". Of COURSE people are going to link with the exact title or with "witches" "transylavania" or transylvanian witches"
I think its a case of some members not being able to look beyond their own "Functional areas" on a very broad web.
Most inbound links to my website simply use the (partial) url as text. i.e. they are mostly identical. I find it hard to believe that Google would issue a penalty for this.
Many of these links (in fact, whole web pages) are generated semi-automatically by other websites as a result of reading so-called pad-files on my website. Pad-files are widely used in the shareware industry : they are used to describe software. If Google were to apply a penalty for this they would not be shooting themselves in the foot, they'd be stepping onto a landmine.
Kaled.
PS
Pad-files contain urls, they do not contain link-to-me data such as ALT/TITLE text or images. This may be relevant if Google were designing such filters.
DomEsme has dropped a lot of sites from the index for no apparent reason, returned them to their traditional top spots, dumped them again, etc. ad infinitum. This is always going to cause panic, fear, ignorance, and wild theorising. It's only natural.
I don't see why external links would be penalised unless they are coming from sites that are in googles 'Little Black Book of Dodgy Link Farms'. (£5.99, a great stocking filler)
There may be a minor filter for reciprocal linking though. Thats a possibility, and perhaps not a bad idea from googles point of view. If links are natural, they're probably worth more than reciprocal links which are more often than not just rank boosting techniques.
(edit due to overzealous language filter!)
I guess I better not say too much, then. But let's ask ourselves if there's a difference *where* links are?
>>If links are natural
Bingo. What's natural, and what's not natural?
What is unnatural and natural?
And as far as the where the links are, I was under the impression that I could not be penalized for who links to me, only who I link to. Is that incorrect?
un-natural:
average links = x
actual number of links first month 12x
actual number of links next 11 months = 0
"Natural" means links that are unsolicited - not bought, traded, or otherwise created by yourself.
The exception would be directories. Google assume these have an element of credibilty and human review.
Google's algo is based on the assumption that pages link to/reference other pages as a vote for that page, not as a transaction. If the vote is being manipulated, they have no choice but to find ways to devalue them.
If all of your links are reciprocal and come from links pages and have the EXACT same anchor text, wouldn't ya think Google might "catch on"? :)
Of course, it is often entirely necessary to manipulate links. The trick is to make it unnoticable.
silly_billy
Totally disagree. If a new gaming system or movie site comes out tomorow, their web pages will instantly gain a large amount of "natural" links.
The theory I support is that if there are loads of identical anchor text links which point to a page which then has a series of obvious seo tricks then google will ignore the anchor text or down play its importance. The seo tactics on your page have to be fairly severe and over the top to trigger this!
The argument about company names being penalised does not hold water, because most company names are not competitive searches. If yours is.... hard luck :)
Just my opinion.......
The theory I support is that if there are loads of identical anchor text links which point to a page which then has a series of obvious seo tricks then google will ignore the anchor text or down play its importance. The seo tactics on your page have to be fairly severe and over the top to trigger this!
You clearly have a much higher opinion of Google's algos that I do. I really don't think they are that sophisticated.
Kaled.
This alone couldn't generate some kind of automatic penalty, as people here have noted. But such link text could well be one factor in a list of factors that Google uses to flag auto-generated sites and other pockets of heavy "search engine persuasion" for closer study. And staying off Google's "check this out" list is something many people care about.
not on day one. and they would continue for a period of time.
And if it were a site with a couple of thousand autgenerated pages cranked out, where would the links with the anchor text appear?
