Does anchor text really matter?

finally, proof!

[danieljean]

Someone suggested I G "miserable failure"

With the quotes, an article with the text in it is #1. #2 comes in at #1 if you remove the quotes.

And what is this? Try it out for yourself.

It took me a while, but I finally uncovered the plot: some people are "Google bombing" the whitehouse's GWB biography by linking to it from the words "miserable failure"

Now, I know, I'm just a newbie, and talking politics could start a flame war. Please, please, pretty please: I just wanted to make a point about anchor text. (I also didn't say I agreed or disagreed with this campaign, and invite you to keep those thoughts to yourself too).

Does this finally put the debate about anchor text at rest?

[nakulgoyal]

Indeed it does. I used a specific keyword of mine in some anchor texts and I get so much of traffic from that keyword that I can't tell. I get over 10k uniques because of that Anchor Text. Works for me.

[rfgdxm1]

Nobody ever said anchor text didn't matter. It has only been suggested that it has been reduced in importance. The SERP "miserable failure" is *extremely* non-competitive. Companies don't hire SEOs to get their site to #1 for that SERP. Nor do amateur webmasters want to do well for that search. This is why it worked in this case.

[oodlum]

See also the KW "Exit".

Adult sites typically have "Enter" & "Exit" links on their warning pages, with the latter linking to Yahoo, Google, Disney, MSN.

Adding to rfgdxm1, if there's little competition for a for word the SERPs tend to correlate very closely with the anchor text.

see: allinanchor:exit

Almost identical to a search for "exit".

[edited by: oodlum at 1:35 am (utc) on Dec. 4, 2003]

[wellzy]

Good point. It would be better to find a more popular term though. That would show if the anchor text outweighs the Title, etc (which I doubt). A real test would be to optimize a page and put miserable failure in the title, H1 tag, etc. I'm sure you could take over no.1 spot

[caustic]

google "click here", the most common anchor text there is but doesn't appear on adobe's page.

[seofreak]

claustic: many sites have pdf files with a note "click here" to download acrobot reader ..

[caustic]

claustic: many sites have pdf files with a note "click here" to download acrobot reader ..

ah, that was my point

[seofreak]

OOPs, after effects of google on me

[Dave_Hawley]

Does anchor text really matter?

No, not really. Just make it enticing and relevant for a person to click on. It's that simple!

Dave

[anime_otaku]

I am absolutely sure OOP only applies to commerical terms I.E. compound phraises that one can buy ad-words with. You can not buy "miserable failure" on ad-words, unlike many popular adult, commercial, etc. themed phraises like example "car insurance". Anchor bomb OOP is being applied only to ad-word phraises.

[Dave_Hawley]

phraises that one can buy ad-words with

As far as I know, you can bid on any keyword or phrase you like with AdWords.

Dave

[seofreak]

yaanywordyoulike