Stop FEARING Anchor Text Density for No Reason

Yes ThopHayt I completely agree. It's totally different for every niche. There are also some massive variations even in the same niche like SEO. For example, when I look at a keyword like 'SEO New York' - not a single site in the top 10 has one exact match link at all!

And when you look at a keyword like 'SEO Seattle':
  • the 1st site has 31% exact match (1yr old)
  • the site in 3rd (7yrs old) has 75% exact match!
Penguin doesn't seem to be just a blanket penalty on sites with anchor text over optimization. It seems to consider a whole bunch of other variables like the quality of the site, visitor behaviour, the quality of the traffic coming through those links etc.
 
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ThopHayt said:
It HIGHLY depends on the niche. OP mentioned two fairly spammy (lets be honest, very spammy) niches. It also depends on the depth of the focus of your site and if you're trying to rank inner pages or the home page. If you have a somewhat spammy niche and you have a highly focused site that is tuned to THAT ONE KEYWORD and you're aiming it at the home page then yeah... yeah you might be able to get away with 20%+ exact anchor text. But if you have a broader niche that isn't spammy and your site isn't laser focused on that EXACT topic as a whole and you're wanting to rank an inner page for that keyword than I'd caution you against going full retard and pumping 25% exact anchor text.

Life isn't so simple, neither is SEO. Don't go jumping to crazy conclusions guys.

-ThopHayt
Click to expand...
Rich77ard said:
Yes ThopHayt I completely agree. It's totally different for every niche. There are also some massive variations even in the same niche like SEO. For example, when I look at a keyword like 'SEO New York' - not a single site in the top 10 has one exact match link at all!

And when you look at a keyword like 'SEO Seattle':
  • the 1st site has 31% exact match (1yr old)
  • the site in 3rd (7yrs old) has 75% exact match!
Penguin doesn't seem to be just a blanket penalty on sites with anchor text over optimization. It seems to consider a whole bunch of other variables like the quality of the site, visitor behaviour, the quality of the traffic coming through those links etc.
Click to expand...


It doesn't consider any of those things. 'quality' isn't something a computer can determine easily. It doesn't have access to the site to determine visitor behavior etc.

it's based on:-

1) On-page keyword density
2) Internal anchors
3) Age of site
4) "Authority" -- Which is gained by having strong backlinks and more root domains.


BUT, you should still keep your anchor low. It's the safest approach. All you have to do is create a few hundred naked/brand links, make sure they're indexed and you can then create more exact anchors
 
I was like you until I started pushing the limits. I promise its a very real penalty. I was at 80% and ranking #1. Penguin 4 hit and I dropped completely. Switched it down to 10% and went right back to #1. Check my journey if you want a case study.
 
I concur with @HenryHavoc. OP, your example was from a niche that must have high exact match keyword to make it look relatable. We prefer long tail keyword links from high DA websites, and at no point we use the exact match keyword beyond the acceptable 10% threshold.
 
I've been seeing the same shit on the serps. Stupid google.
 
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