Anchor Text and Back Links

Can somebody explain these to me

[sadelb]

I was once told that Anchor Text and Back Links were the 2 most important things to get listed good in the serps.. Can somebody explain what these are and how to apply them to the website to get a better rank. I am assuming that back links are links of your website on other websites? Anchor Text are maybe the html tags or headings on the webpage? is this right?

[larryhatch]

Sadelb:

If I have this right, a backlink is the same thing as in incoming link,
a link from somebody else's site to yours, like
[example.com....] The OTHER guy puts the link
into some page of his, hopefully in the form:
<a href="http://www.example.com"> Wet Chickens </a>

In this example, 'Wet Chickens' is the 'anchor text'.
If your site is about Dry Salami, you definitely want
the other fellow to use THAT for anchor text instead.

If you are trying to rank for any keyword(s), an incoming link is worth
a lot less if it does not contain them in the anchor text. - Larry

[edited by: rogerd at 2:46 pm (utc) on Jan. 3, 2005]
[edit reason] examplified [/edit]

[sadelb]

ok so lets say my website name is www.drysalami.com. what if on this guys website it says www.drysalami.com - the best dry salami. The link you click on is www.drysalami.com. the description of it is "the best dry salami". Does this description count as anchor text or does "the best dry salami" have to be clicked on for it to be considered anchor text.

[treeline]

It has to be clickable to be anchor text.

So "the best dry salami" wouldn't be anchor text since it isn't clickable.

[sadelb]

so basically you need to find websites that will allow you to apply that to the content of their site.. Seems like anchor text is more difficult to come by then just a plain old backlink with www.yourwebsite.com

[larryhatch]

OK. referring to my (amended) example.

Lets say somebody links to you with the following in his HTML code:

<BR>
For a really great sandwich, try ..
<a href="http://www.drysalami.com"> Wet Chickens.</a>

On HIS web-page, the colored clickable link will appear as Wet Chickens .. i.e. the viewer will see
"For a really great sandwich try .. Wet Chickens."r

If you can get lots of people to put up a link like that, you should rate really high for Wet Chickens.
You will NOT rate for dry salami.

Some people will copy the entire <a href ... </a> part when the ask for links, so the recipient can
just cut and paste. Make it easy for them.

Since "Wet Chickens" is built in, you get the desired ANCHOR TEXT automatically if they do so.

Give a lot of thought to your ideal anchor text, Wet Chickens is probably inappropriate,
but the rest applies.

- Larry

[treeline]

Seems like anchor text is more difficult to come by then just a plain old backlink

Exactly. Which makes it much more valuable.

[sadelb]

Thanks Larryhatch, that makes it very clear. now I see why it takes so much work to get high up in the serps but on the other end if you work hard at it and do a lot of research regarding other websites and how your site could fit in, you could benefit yourself a lot.. Do plain old backlinks work also? Is this just google that spiders like this or does yahoo do the same thing? again, thanks for your help.

[treeline]

Plain old backlinks definitely help, especially with pagerank. For searches though, targeted anchor text helps most.

All the major search engines seem to be giving backlinks and anchor text importance now. How much varies, but it's very important. Even the anchor text on your own site matters. Take a look at your internal links to see if you can optimize them better. Avoid click here and go for damp chickens...