The Biggest SEO Mistake - Why You Don't Rank NO 1

deki33

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From all (small and big) of my SEO clients I can see that they don't use they brain at all when setting linking campaigns.

They learned basic SEO theory that is written everywhere and that tells you to make keyword reach titles, H tags, anchor texts.
Then they just try to follow all those steps without thinking or doing any experiments.

Here I want to talk about Natural Link Building.

But mostly about anchor text - one of important SEO elements that can give you negative SEO score if is not done properly.

In one sentence - anchor text need to look natural!
You can not have 99% of links coming to your site with your keyword as that is not natural.

I'm not talking here about some long tail keywords with low competition where you could easily rank with few links here and there and few months domain age, but about top terms that are making big money.
Game is a little bit different in this case.

What I see when small clients are submitting project to us is that they submit just main and/or long tail keywords.
Big clients did the same in past when were using cheap outsourced link building, then we need to fix all that in our monthly SEO service.

Sit down and think how would your anchors look like if you have really good site, with top quality content written by top expert in your field.
Look around how others on internet link to some sites when they mention it on their sites, on forums, on social sites.
Analyze first page of google for your competitors and what they use in anchor and in what percentage (use majesticseo,ahrefs or opensiteexplorer).

You will see big number of anchors like:

- this page
- here
- this
- visit here
- full URL as anchor
- domain name as anchor
- company name
- misspelled company name!


Think about this next time when you are ordering some link building service.


Build property with main keyword in title, high keyword density article with over 700 words, few images that have name of image file with keyword (keyword-here.jpg, keywordhere.jpg)...linking from such page with anchor "here" or any other random (non keyword text) is passing link from relative content and looks very natural in eyes of google.


Your site mentioned on other sites without link (just domain name or url without link) is also important factor.
Look how many times Facebeook, Amazon, Youtube are mentioned without linking to it.
What about your site name?


This is just small part of big SEO puzzle.
Still you need to think, analyze and do experiments
about onpage SEO, how frequently to build links and in what volume, links from main site language sites vs foreign languages sites and anchors...etc...etc.

Hope this will help to those of you who are selling SEO services or promoting your personal sites.



Cheers,
Nikola
 
I've concentrated 100,000 high quality links using one keyword, and only one on one of my domains without any adverse effects, so I can't disagree more on your anchor text variation theory. Sure, it makes sense, but that's not the point. The point here is what strategies matter and what works, and I'm sure as heck mine does. Just my 2 cents.
 
Over optimization? I believe this is true, as one of my sites has been hit many times in each panda update because of this (I presume)
 
i belive you didnt got hit my panda 3.3 right?:) i do seo for 3 years and i made a mistake with anchor texts and high pr links... big big mistake. just look at the forum... the small fish got hit by panda. but this stuff never happen to big fish...thats a bad move by big g... in some points of course.in others its a very good actualy!
 
i belive you didnt got hit my panda 3.3 right?:) i do seo for 3 years and i made a mistake with anchor texts and high pr links... big big mistake. just look at the forum... the small fish got hit by panda. but this stuff never happen to big fish...thats a bad move by big g... in some points of course.in others its a very good actualy!

The panda update affected big sites too. Very interesting read over at Techcrunch.

I'm too new to post the link, but just search google for "One Year Later: How Google Panda Changed Our Business" on tech crunch.
 
I've concentrated 100,000 high quality links using one keyword, and only one on one of my domains without any adverse effects, so I can't disagree more on your anchor text variation theory. Sure, it makes sense, but that's not the point. The point here is what strategies matter and what works, and I'm sure as heck mine does. Just my 2 cents.

Most sites I have analyzed that have gotten hit have a very unnatural anchor text profile. This is the most common aspect that I see in fact. The latest Panda refreshes are rolling in stages across the net. So not everyone will see it now. This is intentional by Google to cause debates such as this and confuse people. Makes sense doesn't it? You never know though. You may get lucky. Either way, you are susceptible, because using one anchor text for over 100K backlinks is a pretty big tell to Google.
 
Great post.Super informative,I'm going to change the anchor texts for my dripfeeds right away!
 
Most sites I have analyzed that have gotten hit have a very unnatural anchor text profile. This is the most common aspect that I see in fact. The latest Panda refreshes are rolling in stages across the net. So not everyone will see it now. This is intentional by Google to cause debates such as this and confuse people. Makes sense doesn't it? You never know though. You may get lucky. Either way, you are susceptible, because using one anchor text for over 100K backlinks is a pretty big tell to Google.

Couldnt agree more

I've concentrated 100,000 high quality links using one keyword, and only one on one of my domains without any adverse effects, so I can't disagree more on your anchor text variation theory. Sure, it makes sense, but that's not the point. The point here is what strategies matter and what works, and I'm sure as heck mine does. Just my 2 cents.

its also not just about what works now its about what will work long term, if you are building a business like most of us on here then you need to think about what will have the longest positive impact on your rankings and 99% of your links being on your money keyword cant be healthy.

I think its more of a case of you are getting away with it FOR NOW.

Ive just analysed the top 20 for my competition and all the spammy sites that are raking well have little or no keyword diversity but they do have on-topic, relevant links within good quality content, so i think that is saving them right now, but most of what they are doing just doesnt look natural and if i were them i would be worried for the long term.
 
It is very possible that many of these penalties were for anchor text over optimization, or the Google Bloop (back link over optimization penalty)...

It was probably a combination of private networks and Bloop...
 
So Nikola, you are really right.
The problem is that each and every BST provider only allows up to three anchors.
I would like to see a more complete service that nails that problem, so I dont have to care for that.
Demand - Offer, thats the principle how business works. The first one who offers link diversity in combination with anchor text diversity will land a hit. I am pretty sure about that.
 
It is very possible that many of these penalties were for anchor text over optimization, or the Google Bloop (back link over optimization penalty)...

It was probably a combination of private networks and Bloop...

I vote for links from private network links - I run a fair amount of sites and so far so good; my sites have no links from private networks and pretty much all other kinds of backlinks you can think of (except direct blog comments to the money site)
 
I hope to be a test for this. As I am in the planning phase of a link building campaign, I've been thinking a lot about the nature of natural links. I guess we will find out in six months how well this works. My analytical mind likes this explanation though. Thanks for sharing.
 
I've concentrated 100,000 high quality links using one keyword, and only one on one of my domains without any adverse effects, so I can't disagree more on your anchor text variation theory. Sure, it makes sense, but that's not the point. The point here is what strategies matter and what works, and I'm sure as heck mine does. Just my 2 cents.

True. Also, I'm sure plenty of sites get the same anchor over and over naturally. Not diversifying anchor texts can get you penalized when you have a shitty site (and this applies to almost anything else as well) - you don't have images, you have 3 pages in total, you don't have an about page, etc. etc etc. If your site is a quality one you can do whatever the hell you want :)
 
This is a great post on making your backlinking appear more natural and thus, more effective.

The topic of altering your anchor texts is a pretty big debate within the IM world. Some believe it helps, others swear it doesn't.

In my own testing, I have found that altering the anchor text does, in fact, help with my rankings. I believe this is because it looks much more natural, and appearing more natural in your backlinking efforts always makes it easier and much more effective.
 
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even if you get lucky and get away with over optimization, you can get penalized in a manual review. so it's better to alter your anchor texts as much as possible
 
Can not agree more.

At first, it looks like you are diluting your purchases by trying to rank for stuff like "click here" but, in the long run, its the best.
 
I have little doubt that you speak the truth. It's just so hard to invest in non-keyword based anchors. We all try to squeeze so much out of what we spend and there's a certain counter-intuitiveness to this despite the incontrovertible logic you lay out.

Xtro
 
I have little doubt that you speak the truth. It's just so hard to invest in non-keyword based anchors. We all try to squeeze so much out of what we spend and there's a certain counter-intuitiveness to this despite the incontrovertible logic you lay out.

Xtro

Exactly what I think as well.
 
Great topic here, subscribed.
I personally start my SEO campaigns with high-quality optimized anchors, but a few months after I do a little deoptimization with a light touch of XRumer and some other web 2.0s.
 
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