Post-Brandy anchor text linking?

bomb or not?

[jojojo]

So... I got a lot of sites back to top spots from Brandy update and those sites had 90% of their backlinks the same as the keyword.

What do you recommend now? Same approach or more variance?

[Marcia]

For the 90% is that just one single keyword, or a phrase? And was it just in inbound anchor text or in your internal linking also?

>>Same approach or more variance?

I had a site hit hard by Florida and I eliminated a lot of redundant anchor text and also added changes to include variations. It's now back higher than ever since this last update, but did start to make it's way back just slightly before Brandy.

Another one got hit for the best keywords and has never come back even one little bit on those.

Yet I've got another site with every single inbound link including the two word phrase because it's part of the site name which is 3 words. Never got touched, it stayed right up there stable through it all.

Depends, I don't know if we can assume it's just one single factor, alone all by itself.

[caveman]

Another one got hit for the best keywords and has never come back even one little bit on those

How big is that site, and how many backlinks, roughly on each count?

[Stefan]

From what I can see, on our site, anchor text became important again with Brandy.

Our main page, (not the index.htm), that has an internal link back to it from every page, (over 200, all with lots of text and good PR), dropped to #2 on its most obvious kw-kw post-Florida. With Brandy, it went back to #1 with a second entry, the index.htm, at #2, (because it has some of the kw-kw). Most of the internal links to it are <a href="main.htm">kw-kw</a>, (although I used a second version of the anchor text on about 15% of the links just to hedge my bets).

Anecdotal, but it sure looks to me like anchor text helps again. The main.htm page hardly has any text, it's mostly the "contents" page for the website, so it's very dependent on title and anchor text.

[jbgilbert]

Marcia seems to feel about the same as I and has had near identical results...

"Depends, I don't know if we can assume it's just one single factor, alone all by itself."

If anybody figures out this link text issue for certain, they better KEEP IT A SECRET.

[Net_Wizard]

Here's part of my formula

1. inbound external link with simple anchor (if possible, 1 word)
2. combine that anchor with equivalent semantics on the target page
3. well...that's my secret :)

just 1 & 2 I think is enough to push your page higher in the ranking.

[drewls]

Yep, by the time Brandy rolled around, I'd gotten my site back from oblivion in Austin to page 1 again with just that.

[frup]

do you mean semantics on the page with the link or on the page receiving the link?

[caveman]

So, you're tellling me that the reason my site actually dropped two spots from Austin to Brandy, though still on page one now (and having seen the void during Florida, and returned from it in Austin)...is that my de-emphasized anchor text is now, well, too de-emphasized?

Ya just can't win... ;-)

<shakes head, turns off light, heads home for the night, mumbling once again to himself, "I'm too old for this...">

[Net_Wizard]

semantics on the receiving page

from external link and not internal link

simple anchor = less words instead of a line of description as an anchor, long anchor is just too confusing for G to determine the real value of the anchor.

We're so used to having our title as the anchor from our link exchange partners, you need to change that to its barest form.

If you are selling red widget then that would be the anchor - 'red widget' or even just 'widget' instead of 'Your best source for red widget'. Simplyfy

That's just my observation plus step 3 of course ;)