SEO 2012: Anchor Text Will Become Obsolete

[mjtaylor]

On more than a couple of blogposts I've seen pundits declare that anchor text will be not exactly obsolete, but much less important in 2012.

We know that last year Google reduced the SEO value of keyword rich domains, and I have heard more than one reputable webmaster/SEO report that acquiring links with 'exact match' anchor text has driven SERPs down for the match - the exact opposite of the hoped-for result. I tested that in the last week or 2011 and noticed the same effect. Sites dropped a couple of positions for the anchor text.

Clearly that would indicate a strong possibility negative filter for exact match anchor text.

Have you observed similar results? Is anchor text on the way out? If so, what will replace it? Relevance of the page, page title, or keywords in close proximity to links?

[auli]

I know a lot of people have been saying that exact match domains have been devalued, but I haven't seen any drops in for my EMD sites (in fact most have increased).

Anchor text will still be important, but I would like to see more weight given to the text around the link (as this would devalue a lot of blogroll and footer links).

[bogs]

I still get the same result, its just that google are getting more strict when it comes to content and of course links..

[rjr]

I haven't seen any difference from Google anyways.

Moreover, I do see this with Bing. Every time you get new backlinks, Bing drops you back a few pages. Then, after a couple weeks or so, you are ranking better than before. Bing doesn't like new backlinks. They wait for the backlinks to be assessed properly and aged.

[Alan2011]

It will be horrify , if Anchor Text Will Become Obsolete,what kind of something will be important for website ?

[shailender]

I too have noticed that if you focus on one particular anchor text for link building purpose then you won't get any positive result, so it's always better to focus on 2-3 anchor texts while building your backlinks. It seems natural to Google and Google provide good ranking as well.

[balivillas]

Wow, I haven't particularly investigate on this since I always thought that keywords, on page content to linking anchor text are of great value for the site's rankings.

This will sure change the concept of optimization for link builders and se optimization in the coming years.

[wanzulfikri]

Really? I guess Google is becoming smarter everyday then.

[mjtaylor]

What I found on the topic:

Many SEOs predict Google will continue to devalue exact match anchors as their algorithm evolves in the age of Panda. We've seen evidence of this phenomenon over the past year and many expect to see the value of exact match drop even further.

If you want to read the rest of the SEOMoz Whiteboard Friday post: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beyond-ex...teboard-friday

Here's a good article from Search Engine Journal on exact match domains and why they may still rank well even after Google's announcement that they will not work as well:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/e...ll-rank/28891/.

Personally, I see far fewer exact match domains in the SERPs, but your results may vary.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

... I have heard more than one reputable webmaster/SEO report that acquiring links with 'exact match' anchor text has driven SERPs down for the match - the exact opposite of the hoped-for result. I tested that in the last week or 2011 and noticed the same effect. Sites dropped a couple of positions for the anchor text.

Clearly that would indicate a strong possibility negative filter for exact match anchor text.

Absent a logical reason for holding that such text is now taken to mean something quite different from the plain meaning of the words, the notion of a "negative filter" having been implemented defies reason.

This appears to be a case of mistaking correlation for causality.

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[deepsand]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

What I found on the topic:

If you want to read the rest of the SEOMoz Whiteboard Friday post: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beyond-ex...teboard-friday

Here's a good article from Search Engine Journal on exact match domains and why they may still rank well even after Google's announcement that they will not work as well:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/e...ll-rank/28891/.

Personally, I see far fewer exact match domains in the SERPs, but your results may vary.

The SEOmoz data cited in the SEO Journal article here cited are outdated.

The 2011 SEOmoz data showed a significant drop in the effect of keywords in the Domain Name; the Spearman rank correlation coefficient fell from 0.34 to 0.22.

This should come as no surprise in light of the boost given brand names in the Vincent update of 2009, the first of several changes signalling Google's moves to give more visibility to big brands at the expense of others.

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[kevin861]

uh.if we would not use exact anchor text,then we should do more long tail words?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by kevin861

uh.if we would not use exact anchor text,then we should do more long tail words?

There is no reason to avoid anything other than having the anchor text of a preponderance of IBLs be identical, as such would give the appearance of most likely being contrived, and consequently devalued.

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[~kev~]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

I tested that in the last week or 2011 and noticed the same effect. Sites dropped a couple of positions for the anchor text.

Clearly that would indicate a strong possibility negative filter for exact match anchor text.

I noticed this several years ago, but mostly for new sites.

If the majority of your backlinks have the same anchor text, it seems to have a negative affect on rankings.

Once the site ages several years, starts to get non-keyword anchor text, then keyword anchor text seem to have no affect.

I think it has to do more with having the same anchor text repeated over and over in the majority of backlinks, then having anchor text in the link.

[Brave7]

Mjtaylor you are correct that link anchor text lost value alone. I will say that link anchor text matching keyphrase in url and title will give more weight.

The main on-site SEO factors are the page title, and meta description that includes the keyword/keyphrase, plus the keyword/keyphrase in the contents. All of that combined with great contents should rank pretty well.

Now, search engines will always reward reputation links as a vote. I disagree with that, because in a lot of cases it is very manipulatived by gray webmasters that tend to use doorway sites, and actually they are somehow prowerful.

[~kev~]

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

because in a lot of cases it is very manipulatived by gray webmasters that tend to use doorway sites, and actually they are somehow prowerful.

I use a doorway site, but I do not consider it to be gray or blackhat.

Forum - domain name

Blog - second domain name

Comments on the blog are turned off. If I want comments in an article, I will post the article in the forum, then provide a link at the bottom of the blog article to the forum article.

One of the things google webmaster tools says about doorway sites, they might get a penalty if they contain little or no unique content. To prevent getting a penalty, I post lots of articles on the blog that are not posted in the forum. I also upload a lot of images to my blog, which are not uploaded to the forum.

[Brave7]

Originally Posted by ~kev~

One of the things google webmaster tools says about doorway sites, they might get a penalty if they contain little or no unique content. To prevent getting a penalty, I post lots of articles on the blog that are not posted in the forum. I also upload a lot of images to my blog, which are not uploaded to the forum.

Hello Kev, how are you doing?

When I was talking about gray doorway sites, I was thinking about sites that are not complementary like forum or blog but rather sites with little content made for the purpose of manipulating reputations by back linking anchor texts with small variations to the main site.

I am not sure that Google can detect this, because these sites rank pretty well without a lot of work.

[~kev~]

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

Hello Kev, how are you doing?

Doing good, thank you, and you?

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

When I was talking about gray doorway sites, I was thinking about sites that are not complementary like forum or blog but rather sites with little content made for the purpose of manipulating reputations by back linking anchor texts with small variations to the main site..

Yep, I see stuff like that from time to time. The site might only have a few pages, but contain tons of deep links to the other sites.

I see my blog as a blog, and not really as a doorway site. On average my blog gets around 700 - 900 uniques daily. That is not a lot of traffic, but a lot of that traffic goes to the forum. The bounce rate from the blog to the forum is low, like in the 20% range low.

When I think about posting content on my blog or forum, I ask myself if the content is going to be of any real value.

For example, I am looking at buying a new pistol in the next week or so. I started a thread in the forum today about what kind of ammunition to buy for the pistol. When I finally buy the pistol, buy some ammo, do some shooting, I can then link from my blog post to the forum thread I started today.

With the pistol, I am trying to plan the forum threads maybe 2 weeks ahead of time.

Then comes the youtube video after everything falls into place, and the pictures of shooting at the range.

When I do these projects for my blog and forum, I might spend several days working on the content, and that is what good bloggers should do. If someone wants to create unique and outstanding content, they have to work on it. Sometimes I might take 2 - 3 weeks to write a post for my blog. But that is the price I pay for what I consider quality.

Regardless of the changes google makes, as long as people are willing to put in the time, they should not be affected.

[Brave7]

Originally Posted by ~kev~

When I do these projects for my blog and forum, I might spend several days working on the content, and that is what good bloggers should do. If someone wants to create unique and outstanding content, they have to work on it. Sometimes I might take 2 - 3 weeks to write a post for my blog. But that is the price I pay for what I consider quality.

Regardless of the changes google makes, as long as people are willing to put in the time, they should not be affected.

Doing okay so far

Exactly right Kev, it is a lot of work and the only way to really give some love to the site. I don't see how these webmasters can own dozen of sites providing great contents that people enjoy reading besides spamming or manipulating search engines.

I see a lot of reputable sites owners focusing on one site only, with blog, forums or social media, providing what people are looking for.

[newportbeachrealtor]

My exact keyword domain is doing well. Haven't seen any decrease, in fact it has gone up in recent weeks. Hopefully things won't change for 2012.