The Power Of Anchor Text
ADVERTISEMENTSThe keywords in the anchor text of incoming links to a site is one of the most important factors for ranking well for the keywords you target. Knowing this well, John Chow got his blog to the the number one position for the keywords ‘make money online’ by offering a free link back to the sites that review his blog and link to his blog homepage with the anchor text ‘make money online’.
However he is making a mistake by getting people to link his blog with only an anchor text of ‘make money online’. If too many sites link his blog with the same anchor text, Google will be able to find out that these are artificial links and may soon kick his blog out from the first page of the search result itself. Infact this happened recently.
To last longer for the keywords you target, get sites to link you with a variation of the keywords in the anchor text. Having a variety in the anchor text of your incoming links is a signal that those links are natural.
Example: If you are trying to get your site to rank well for the keywords ‘make money online’, try to get sites to link you (or buy links) with a variety in the anchor text like ‘make money online surfing’ and ‘ways to make money online’.
This way Google may not figure out easily that you are artificially trying to rank for some keywords and you will last longer once you are successful in getting to a good position for the keywords.
Or you could try to make some good post on making money online, like a guide, and then Digg it. If your post gets to the frontpage, you will get thousands of incoming links to your post and pretty soon you may get to a high position for the keywords you are targeting.
If you are confused on which anchor texts to target, try using a keyword tool like Overture. Also check out this backlink anchor text analyzer and checklist of the factors that affect your rankings with Google, MSN, Yahoo.
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Posted on June 2nd, 2007 | Category: SEO |
Jamdo
June 3, 2007 at 5:45 am
Spot on - a while back I optimised a site for a single keyword and got to the number one spot - made a bit a cash and then Google realised that every single link to my site said the same thing. Now, I am nowhere to be seen for that term.
Live and learn.
Blogging with Desi Baba
June 3, 2007 at 5:52 am
I agree with you. I have various anchor texting such as “work at home” and “desi baba” from various other bloggers.
Vijay
June 3, 2007 at 9:29 am
Now, I guess John Chow is back to number one. But yes, you are right… You dont need rocket science to guess that those link backs are not natural.
And I am surprised that google hasn’t done anything about it yet
Jamdo
June 3, 2007 at 9:55 am
John’s blog is older and probably has a lot of other incoming links too, so I wouldn’t hold my breath for Google to sort it out.
horisly
June 3, 2007 at 10:43 am
i used to use my net-id.
MoneyNing
June 3, 2007 at 12:00 pm
It is very hard for Google to do something that few individuals are doing so far. I do see many more people doing this more and more so maybe it will be stopped in the future.
As for John Chow, whatever he is doing, it is obviously making him quite rich.
Anand
June 3, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Assuming that Google does not find out artifical links manually, and does it only through its algo, how do I explain every site linking to Google with the anchor text Google? Will Google’s algo also “infer” that since a majority of the sites are linking to the Google homepage with the anchor text “Google”, the company paid for its links and so has to be penalized?
Nirmal
June 3, 2007 at 1:16 pm
I too have seen many people using anchor text, but never tried using it. Recently read about Google ditching John Chow.
latest technology news
June 3, 2007 at 1:53 pm
he is still at no one for the keyword “make money online”
and Anand:
no one knows how the google algorith actually works…
when someone tries to get close to it…google updates the working of its algo…:D
Nirmal
June 3, 2007 at 4:56 pm
technology news,
For a few days Johnchow was no where in the first few pages of google search for make money online.
And you are right we don’t exactly know the algo.
Anand
June 3, 2007 at 5:17 pm
My point is not about the algo..My point is whatever Google does shall be uniform for all anchor links..JohnChow is linked with ‘Make Money Online’ all the while, while Google is linked with ‘Google’ all the while..
How can you prove that the former is paid and the latter is not..John Chow is just one amongst millions…It is simply infeasible to go after looking for paid links this way…
Ronald
June 3, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Oh, so this is connection with supplement result?
listikal
June 3, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Excellent tips John, I really haven’t taken advantage of Anchor text as much as I probably should have. I’ll be sure to do so from now on though.
Jamdo
June 3, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Anand - conceivably the algorythm could take into account source, context, date.
Google would have had a steady amount of links with “Google” as the anchor text coming in since its inception.
John Chow’s linking profile was probably mainly with a steady growth of links saying “John Chow” and then suddenly he has 100s of links to exactly the same URl within a few weeks saying “make money online”.
It is certainly within the realms of possibility that an algorythm could pick that up.
Anand
June 3, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Nice point Jamdo..I was just think if this could also be a flawed argument somehow (just to take the argument further..)
Let us say we have an official site for Tsunami..Not many would have linked to the site till the Tsunami actually struck. But after the devastation, we could have had a lot many blogs suddenly pointing to the site with the anchor text Tsunami…Now this algo could fail in this case..
This argument might look stupid, but I guess Google will take into account such simple possibilities too when deciding on such issues..
latest technology news
June 3, 2007 at 11:02 pm
the argument is pretty reasonable..
well the possibilities are endless and the google algo is also designed by humans ..so nothing is perfect ..
it can only answered by google…which is now on a buyout spree…
Don
June 4, 2007 at 3:49 am
It will be interesting to see how long he will stay at #1. I was worried G would change the algo simply because he was announcing to the world what he was doing with the anchor text.
Don
Clara
June 4, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Perhaps you have heard about the anchor text “Click here” which is THE popular backlink for….Adobe! Just so many use the anchor “Click here” to direct readers to download the Adobe reader.
CypherHackz
June 4, 2007 at 2:33 pm
lets see who will dominate keyword ‘technology blog’. he3.
horisly
June 4, 2007 at 6:48 pm
hehe, i just want to make sense of autos. (http://horisly.blogspot.com)
kuanhoong
June 4, 2007 at 7:58 pm
It seems John Chow is back. Now he is Number 1 for the keyword “Make Money Online” on Google SERP.
Looks like he has done it again!.
SEO blog
June 4, 2007 at 8:25 pm
I don’t think this had anything to do with his anchor text. His home page wasn’t indexed at all for a couple of days, that’s not some sort of over optimization penalty, that’s a major error somewhere. If it were a penalty, his home page would have still been indexed, but not ranked well. Also, the fact that he didn’t remove the links to the reviews from his site and yet has regained his rankings also suggest it had nothing to do with the reviews.
You’re right, it’s not a good idea to have 100% anchor text for your targeted term, but John is far from close to that. If I had to venture a guess as to the cause of John’s temporary drop, I would consider a robots.txt error, a .htaccess error, a temporary glitch in one of Google’s data centers, or perhaps even an accidental removal of the url via Webmaster central.
DotNetNuke
June 5, 2007 at 1:26 am
From my short history John Chow made it to success, and anchor texts are nice way to improve linkback quality.
SEO blog
June 5, 2007 at 3:04 am
Here you go… I’m 95% I’ve figured out what John did to get back in Google’s good graces.
Pallab
June 5, 2007 at 10:50 am
I also think SEO Blog’s theory is correct. John Chow.com had the phrase make money on multiple pages. I am sure that john chow has used it on more than hundred occasions. So even though the same anchor text is used on link to johnchow.com by multiple blogs, its unlikely that Google bot would consider it to be a case of google bombing.
latest technology news
June 5, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Good point Clara ..i ve heard about the adobe ranking no 1 for the term click here a long time ago…so that means Adobe must be penalized too…:D
Keith Dsouza
June 5, 2007 at 10:19 pm
I do agree with that, that’s why I do not use links that say here or there but put in meaningful words and title for the link
Jamdo
June 6, 2007 at 4:54 am
Seo Blog - that was a very nice spot. Well done.
SEO blog
June 6, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Thanks Jamdo!
narendra.s.v
June 8, 2007 at 3:09 pm
thanks and intersting…….
John T. Pratt
June 8, 2007 at 7:44 pm
This was a great tip. I sure screwed up long ago on some sites I own when I placed the same blogroll on each site (listing my ‘network’ of sites). Not only was the link text the same for all, it was in my theme, and hence on every page. It sure didn’t take google long to figure out what I’d done. You learn the hard way sometimes I guess…
Ed Kohler
June 8, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Great advice. My biggest concern when reading posts like this is whether people will latch on to this one strategy as the end-all trick for SEO. That’s where things get dangerous.
John Metcalfe
June 10, 2007 at 4:32 pm
I think the mistake John Chow has made is his actual boasting on his blog that he’s ranking so well for “make money online” and the way he’s achieved it…
If i was in the same position i definately wouldn’t be boasting about it to everybody that’s for sure!
In the long term i think google will eventually penalise him for the way he’s achieved it as it’s not a natural form of linking and is much more artificial…
John
zaki
June 13, 2007 at 11:50 pm
well, what was actually happen is bacause his robots.txt. Read more at link below . They have predict ti correctly.
http://www.seorefugee.com/seob.....o-experts/
SEO Blog
August 1, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Anchor Texts can be very powerful in giving you a boost in SERPs. My post about using Keywords in Anchor Texts also highlights some of the important points why Anchor Texts are important for Search Engine Rankings.
Make money online witha 12 years old kid
August 20, 2007 at 6:58 pm
yeah i agree with SEO blog i red his post that what i was looking for thanks SEO Blog and thanks johntp
SEO Blog
August 20, 2007 at 7:32 pm
hey Make money online, thank you for the appreciation and i’m glad you liked the read
Make money online witha 12 years old kid
August 21, 2007 at 1:04 am
no problem SEO blog we are all friends
ronald
September 27, 2007 at 8:34 am
tnx for this fruitfull information i really like this post… this explain me alot regarding anchor text…
tnx..