Inbound Links and Anchor Text
This opinion was originally published on this site before the SEO Blog existed, around 2003. The date shown on this post is simply the date of the republication of the article on this SEO Blog.
The Power Of Anchor Text
Successful search engine optimization employs many factors. However, one of the most important factors is the anchor text of inbound links. Because Google, among other search engines, puts a significant amount of weight on the anchor text of inbound links, anchor text can be a decisive factor when going after top ranking on extremely competitive search terms.
Precisely how powerful is anchor text of inbound links? It is entirely possible to achieve top ranking for extremely competitive keywords without any hint of on-page-elements SEO.
Same thing applies when you do a search for leave, for which Yahoo! is listed in the #1 spot. Yahoo is also #1 for the search term exit, due solely to the anchor text of hundreds of mature content sites.
Use
So how do you, as an SEO, utilize the power of anchor text? The easiest - most cost effective - way is to choose a descriptive name for your site, and by descriptively naming your folders and files.
Domains
We are currently analyzing data from market research into consumer behavior in regard to domain names. The completed analysis will be published in an article entitled Descriptive Domains for SEO. As a preview of things to come, let me say that preliminary data shows descriptive domains - keyword domains, that is - to benefit from a much higher CTR than non-descriptive domains.
File Naming
Looking through the traffic logs of websites we maintain is a daily chore. Early detection of shifts in search engine ranking is a must in this business. One thing I’ve often noticed is search strings containing words that appear neither on the page, nor in anchor text of inbound links - except where the URL of the page has been used as anchor text. This is where we see the benefit of descriptive file naming.
To give a poor example, I recently noticed this search string in the traffic logs of Quality-Web-Hosting.net:
“quality PHP search engine optimization”
But those words don’t appear in the link text of inbound links! Unless, of course, you use the URL itself as link text:
www.quality-web-hosting.net/search_engine_optimization.php.
As one of the most powerful search engine optimization tactics, I believe that keyword anchor text link-building should be a high priority in any search engine optimization campaign.
Discuss this article in the Webmaster Forums.
November 3rd, 2006 at 1:42 am
Google is at the top number to give heavy weight to anchor text. Yahoo & Live Search are different in this manner.
I also tried the query “HERE” and it returned all the results which don’t have “here” on page.
Wonder what type of weight is given to image linkback
November 6th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
[...] Today, 09:58 PM YES, you can put it below. Invisible may be a problem with google and some other search engines if you are hiding or spamming key words. They could ban you. I would just look for a place high up in your copy to place the major keyword, but don’t go to crazy, your title tah is very import as well as inbound links using your keyword in the anchor text. This is all for SEO. You can creat sub pages regarding a particular keyword and put that on your website and optimize it. Here’s a great article on inbound links and anchor text Inbound Links and Anchor Text and an xml tool to create a sitemap so google can crawl your pages faster Hope it all helps Frank Are Health Clubs Sucking The Money Right Out Of Your Wallet? Want REAL Muscle Building Results From The Comfort And Convenience Of Your Home Or Office, For Pennies A Day?? Then You Must Get This FREE Report Today! Http://www.BullyXtreme.net [...]
December 5th, 2006 at 9:00 am
[...] Originally Posted by John Scott Link tag? Never heard of it. And inbound link anchor text is not a tag or even a part of on-site SEO. Anchor text of inbound links is indeed the most powerful element in SEO, but this discussion is about on-page SEO. Word! I guess dsarathy didn’t understand the question. __________________ http://www.futurelooks.com [...]
January 8th, 2007 at 3:26 am
[...] To further see the effect keyword targeted anchor text, we’ll quote some research published on the v7n.com blog about inbound links and anchor text: Monster.com currently sits in the #1 spot for the search term Jobs. The word “jobs†does not even appear on that page in text form; the only occurrence is once in the form of ALT text. [...]
January 23rd, 2007 at 4:59 am
Did you count the results with their PRs. Let say, if a site with PR0 but a lot of other PR0’s site having anchor text pointing to it, how’s the result? The experiment seemed to be a bit too simple.
CMS SEO
February 9th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
[...] John Scott has written a blog post on the importance of inbound links and anchor text for your website when doing SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) in order to be ranked high up in the search engine list as well as for the Google spiders to track your website and give you a good PageRank in their next update. Here is a short excerpt from the article: Successful search engine optimization employs many factors. However, one of the most important factors is the anchor text of inbound links. Because Google, among other search engines, puts a significant amount of weight on the anchor text of inbound links, anchor text can be a decisive factor when going after top ranking on extremely competitive search terms. [...]
March 10th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
[...] Make sure your Keyword is contained in the text each Inbound [...]
May 16th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
[...] underscore. Those pages are able to rank on the basis of other factors, such as domain authority, anchor text of inbound links, etc. __________________ Permanent Contextual Links! - Web Directory Questions? Call V7 toll [...]
August 20th, 2008 at 5:05 am
seems like the search engines give more weight to anchor text in the following order: msn,google then yahoo. MSN definately gives alot more weight to keywords in the domain name.