Ranking a site without exact anchor text

[cocococo]

We all know how google has changed the playing field, where anchor text used to be number 1 priority in ranking on google first page. We now know this is not the case anymore since panda and penguin update.

And today's seo is to have link profile appearing natural, by building brand, naked url etc.

Two weeks ago, I decided to test some link building strategy, if it's possible to rank a site without using one single exact anchor text. I know this is achievable as have seen some site lately ranking on page 1 without anchor text, but rank because of their content and thier BRAND link profile.

So I decided to try this on a client site, yes hes a small fry, small experiment. Hes niche is in scrap metal, not alot of competition, but still I want to see how it will pan out without using any of his exact anchor text except using the below

Brand
Url
Brand+Phrase

This client phrase is a local phrase, with 5 phrases, example scrap metal london.

What backlinks did I use?

Web2.0s
Social Profile (which you can find on senuke)
50 Private authority Links

I set up his onpage title to show something like this

Metal Dough - Scrap Metal London

I set the anchor variations in this order

metaldough
metal dough
www.metaldough.co.uk
http://www.metaldough.co.uk
metaldough.co.uk
metal dough scrap metal london
metaldough - scrap metal london

This above are just example on how I set this client's anchor link profile. No direct exact anchor text links going to his website.

2 weeks later, 2 out of 5 phrases hit page 1, and the rest position, 14, 19 and 26

I know this is relatively small test on a local phrase client, however have tried this exact anchor variation on med competion with good result and in effect not risking getting slapped in the face by google.

By all means do your own research, and try as much as possible to lower the exact anchor text going to your domain. Seo game has changed now where google place little emphasis on exact phrase.

Goodluck

Remi

 

[DamageX]

Did you include the keywords in the text surrounding the links?

 

[mogs03]

I am also doing this kind of method and it shows good result for my clients website. I NEVER use exact-match anchors EVER. If you had a hundred unique anchor phrases - from a hundred different links, then it sounds like you're completely safe from Penguin; as you never exceed 1% unique phrase-density.

 

[cocococo]

Did you include the keywords in the text surrounding the links?

The keyword only appear in this manner
metal dough scrap metal london
metaldough - scrap metal london

Brand+Keyword

Not direct exact anchor text

 

[sovereign]

I am also doing this kind of method and it shows good result for my clients website. I NEVER use exact-match anchors EVER. If you had a hundred unique anchor phrases - from a hundred different links, then it sounds like you're completely safe from Penguin; as you never exceed 1% unique phrase-density.

haha that'd still be an interesting site to see

Imagine doing a manual review on that website "hMmM 3,000 backlinks yet not a single one them have the same anchor text"

At least they can't say you're over optimizing

The keyword only appear in this manner
metal dough scrap metal london
metaldough - scrap metal london

Brand+Keyword

Not direct exact anchor text

Yes this also works really well if you focus on a long tail keyword

About a year ago I targeted a long tail keyword that received about 20k searches and it also had a keyword within the text that received 100k searches

I was on page 1 for the long tail for a few months and then out of nowhere I also started ranking for the 100k keyword on the top of page 2 never got any higher though sadly

 

[gullsinn]

Its quite possible to rank small low comp keywords without anchor text.

 

[cocococo]

Its quite possible to rank small low comp keywords without anchor text.

well it works, I still see alot of seo companies, blasting exact anchor text on their clients, I tried this strategy on a Medium competitors and achieve good result, the main point of the thread is exact anchor text is not what it used to be.

 

[Adi717]

hi,
what would be the best way to build links after all these updates, I had a local car rental site which was hit by the emd and then by panda so i did a redirect to a brand + keyword domain and it got back to page 4. ( this is by changing the url format and adding new content to it. what would be the best way to build link on this site to get it on top. it was on rank 1 for the exact match keyword ( domain name for over 2 years its a local business site with car rental + city name and it was working well.
what's the best to do in this case to build new links?

Thanks

Adi

 

[RealEcon]

Yep, seems like Google is using some other metric to pass page relevance and ranking juice. I think Matt Cutts alluded to this with his cryptic Christmas Press Release post.

 

[ok888]

Very interesting i might try this out

 

[noisycicada]

This is so easy to do for local businesses though. I would like to see a case study for a national (or global) company try to do this.

 

[jascoken]

I recently went into great depth on this in these videos:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/black-hat-seo/499970-understanding-link-building-diversity-anchor-text-profiles-post-penguin-videos.html

...by using phrase match anchors, you're avoiding a lot of the penguin issues caused by exact-match, but you still need to be careful that the overall density of your keywords throughout the phrase-matches doesn't get too high, or that can cause a problem. I went into detail on this in point 3 on the 2nd video.

i.e. if you had 100 different phrase-matched anchors, but they all contained 'weight loss diets' in them (e.g. Weight loss diets uncovered, great weight loss diets, choosing a weight loss diet, etc.) then you'll still likely get penalised for the 'weight loss diet' term.

 

[cocococo]

I recently went into great depth on this in these videos:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...anchor-text-profiles-post-penguin-videos.html

...by using phrase match anchors, you're avoiding a lot of the penguin issues caused by exact-match, but you still need to be careful that the overall density of your keywords throughout the phrase-matches doesn't get too high, or that can cause a problem. I went into detail on this in point 3 on the 2nd video.

i.e. if you had 100 different phrase-matched anchors, but they all contained 'weight loss diets' in them (e.g. Weight loss diets uncovered, great weight loss diets, choosing a weight loss diet, etc.) then you'll still likely get penalised for the 'weight loss diet' term.

Hey, I watched your video when you shared it, good video, link profile is all about balance, I like to keep everything to 80-20 percent rule, for this particular site, the 80 percent goes into URl, brand etc, while 20 percent for the brand+phrase. Even 20 percent is high, this strategy is just in a test phase anyway

 

[cocococo]

This is so easy to do for local businesses though. I would like to see a case study for a national (or global) company try to do this.

this can be done with national phrases as well, with just maybe 10-15 percent anchor text depending on industry. The whole point of this thread and how google algorithm work now is google is not awarding site with huge exact anchor text with result you'd expect years back.

 

[don chino]

Your approach seems logical OP... BUT what if my brand name was Scrap Metal in your example? And I had domain scrapmetal.co.uk? It would be clear to have for example 30% anchors "scrap metal", which would at the same time be the main keyword for ranking? How can Google say that it is not my brand, instead keyword that I am manipulating on?? Even if my domain was londonmetal.co.uk or whatever.. This scrap metal could be my brand name. The automatic robot cannot tell what is my brand name and what isn't. How would you comment on this? Thanks.

 

[catardat]

Am I missing something here or Adobe still ranks #1 for "click here" and #4 for "download".

 

[Deleted member 81315]

#2 for click here I believe.

 

[Bragah]

I did this test for about 4-5 months.

After the first Penguin Update I thought that it might not be an anchor text update but more like a new patent for google bots to read the content, figure out what the article is about and decide themselves on best relevant anchor text for that linked site.
I`ve built more than 6000 backlinks this way for few sites with a huge diversity but frankly I was hit by the second refresh as well..

Why you ranked in this case was because the competition was very low and you still added the keyword you wanted to rank for after brand name
[ brand name - keyword ]

As I said, I did the test you meant to for sites that lost over 80% of the traffic after Penguins and it didn`t work.. They still have a long journey ahead to find the solution to implement that thing i was expecting Penguin to mean.

 

[cocococo]

I did this test for about 4-5 months.

After the first Penguin Update I thought that it might not be an anchor text update but more like a new patent for google bots to read the content, figure out what the article is about and decide themselves on best relevant anchor text for that linked site.
I`ve built more than 6000 backlinks this way for few sites with a huge diversity but frankly I was hit by the second refresh as well..

Why you ranked in this case was because the competition was very low and you still added the keyword you wanted to rank for after brand name
[ brand name - keyword ]

As I said, I did the test you meant to for sites that lost over 80% of the traffic after Penguins and it didn`t work.. They still have a long journey ahead to find the solution to implement that thing i was expecting Penguin to mean.

Since panda and penguin update have been using this strategy except that I use exact anchor text making 10 - 15 percent of my link profiles and have never had a single penalties.

Where's as your link profile is not as water tight has you think, pm me the sites and I will have a look and tell you what your doing wrong

 

[cocococo]

Your approach seems logical OP... BUT what if my brand name was Scrap Metal in your example? And I had domain scrapmetal.co.uk? It would be clear to have for example 30% anchors "scrap metal", which would at the same time be the main keyword for ranking? How can Google say that it is not my brand, instead keyword that I am manipulating on?? Even if my domain was londonmetal.co.uk or whatever.. This scrap metal could be my brand name. The automatic robot cannot tell what is my brand name and what isn't. How would you comment on this? Thanks.

If scrapmetal.co.uk is your domain which is an emd I would take the following steps below for anchors.

Www.scrapmetal.co.uk
Http://www.scrapmetal.co.uk
Scrapmetal.co.uk
Www.scrapmetal.co.uk/
Http://www.scrapmetal.co.uk/
Scrapmetal.co.uk/
Scrap metal (your exact phrase and I will make this 5 - 10 percent of the link profile