What is your Anchor Text Distribution Ratio?
- Thread starter Camouf
- Start date
Great subject. I've looked into this a lot lately and I'm struggling to see any patterns. I've seen sites ranking very well for very high competition keywords, that have a 95% partial match. The exact match doesn't ever seem to be higher than 25% though. It's frustrating because one site I'm really competing with has virtually no brand or generic anchors and you can see their links are all unnatural, yet they rank 2nd for a very high volume/competition UK keyword. Sometimes I feel like there are different rules for different countries as I'm seeing lots of sites here in the uk that are asking for a penalty, yet continue to rank very well.
IamBlackhatter
Elite Member
- Feb 26, 2011
- 2,538
- 1,477
I usually keep it in a mixed ratio together with main keywords don't have any aspect ratio 
Thanks for the replies so far.
Thanks dannyby11z, I am struggling to see these patterns too.
Could you please share your anchor text distribution ratio, like I did in the first example?
What is your Anchor Text Distribution Ratio?
Thanks dannyby11z, I am struggling to see these patterns too.
Could you please share your anchor text distribution ratio, like I did in the first example?
What is your Anchor Text Distribution Ratio?
- Oct 30, 2011
- 5,995
- 9,969
That is the general breakdown of what I personally use. However, I tend to change them at times when some of the keywords are higher competition, etc..
Generic 15%
primary kw 15%
brand 15%
brand variants 20%
secondary 10%
URL and varitaions 15% eg dubdubdubdotmysitedotcom, mysitedotcom, httpee:slashslashdubdubdubdotmysitedotcom
partial matches 10% eg best keyword, good keyword, cheap keyword
also I vary it based on the ratio the top 2 -3 sites have in the niche - as long as they have a natural link profile.
primary kw 15%
brand 15%
brand variants 20%
secondary 10%
URL and varitaions 15% eg dubdubdubdotmysitedotcom, mysitedotcom, httpee:slashslashdubdubdubdotmysitedotcom
partial matches 10% eg best keyword, good keyword, cheap keyword
also I vary it based on the ratio the top 2 -3 sites have in the niche - as long as they have a natural link profile.
- Oct 30, 2011
- 5,995
- 9,969
Yeah, I have at times gone up to 20%.
cloakndagger2
Regular Member
- Oct 30, 2012
- 296
- 93
I tend to find 20-25% for primary is a sweetspot for me,secondary keyword around 14-16% and the rest end up around 8% each,I very rarely use generic stuff like click here etc.No problems ranking.
maecenas23
Senior Member
- Oct 12, 2010
- 1,075
- 1,010
After I tested multiple alternatives, this worked the best for me:
40 % exact match anchor text
20% partial match anchor text
30% generic anchor text
10% naked urls
40 % exact match anchor text
20% partial match anchor text
30% generic anchor text
10% naked urls
SEO_Alchemy
Elite Member
- Sep 8, 2012
- 1,673
- 1,473
I think trying to nail exact percentages is just going to give you a headache.
My general rule of thumb is to use 1/3 naked 1/3 generic and 1/3 optimized give or take (this will include the exact anchor, partial, LSI variations, and niche related).
This will be applied to mass link building ie. bookmarks, wikis, pdfs, profiles, etc.
Then with high PR quality links you go straight for the jugular of just optimized anchors (but again a mix of exact, partial, LSI, and niche related). Your site is already anchor diverse from the 1/3 1/3 1/3 backlink profile, now you can concentrate the better links for your money keywords. I firmly believe that using exact anchor in all your links is not only dangerous, but will become less and less effective. Google will decide what your page is about from your onPage factors, a few exact anchors are great, but partial and LSI will work just as well and safer.
Most penguined sites are the result of over optimized anchors IMO. It's one of the easiest metrics for google to detect. "Aha, this fucker has 50% links anchored with (learn spanish today), his site title is (learn spanish today) and his url is (learnspanishtoday.com), he's attempting to manipulate rankings and taking away our Adwords revenue for that keyword >>>> Penalty!
My general rule of thumb is to use 1/3 naked 1/3 generic and 1/3 optimized give or take (this will include the exact anchor, partial, LSI variations, and niche related).
This will be applied to mass link building ie. bookmarks, wikis, pdfs, profiles, etc.
Then with high PR quality links you go straight for the jugular of just optimized anchors (but again a mix of exact, partial, LSI, and niche related). Your site is already anchor diverse from the 1/3 1/3 1/3 backlink profile, now you can concentrate the better links for your money keywords. I firmly believe that using exact anchor in all your links is not only dangerous, but will become less and less effective. Google will decide what your page is about from your onPage factors, a few exact anchors are great, but partial and LSI will work just as well and safer.
Most penguined sites are the result of over optimized anchors IMO. It's one of the easiest metrics for google to detect. "Aha, this fucker has 50% links anchored with (learn spanish today), his site title is (learn spanish today) and his url is (learnspanishtoday.com), he's attempting to manipulate rankings and taking away our Adwords revenue for that keyword >>>> Penalty!