Use descriptive anchor text for all your text links. Most search engines consider anchor text of incoming links when ranking pages. Here is an example of anchor:
Another example of an anchor could be as follows:
<a href="otherpage.htm" title="Anchor Title">
<img src="image.gif" alt="keywords" />
</a>
In this case Anchor Text has been replaced by an image. So while using an image in place of anchor text it should be checked that you have put alt tag properly. An image alt tag should have appropriate keywords.
Anchor Text
Anchor Text is the
visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. In modern browsers, it is often blue
and underlined, such as seo-tutorials-forall
Code Sample
<a
href="http://seo-tutorials-forall.blogspot.in/">Example Anchor
Text</a>
Optimal Format
SEO-friendly anchor
text is succinct and relevant to the target page.
What
is Anchor Text?
Anchor text is the
visible characters and words that hyperlinks display when linking to another
document or location on the web. In the phrase "CNN is a good source of news, but I actually
prefer the BBC's
take on events," two unique pieces of anchor text exist for two
different links: "CNN" is the anchor text pointing to
http://www.cnn.com/, while “the BBC's take on events” points to
http://news.bbc.co.uk.
Search engines use
this text to help determine the subject matter of the linked-to document. In
the example above, the links would tell the search engine that when users
search for "CNN", Moz.com thinks that http://www.cnn.com/ is a
relevant site for the term "CNN" and that http://www.bbc.co.uk is
relevant to “the BBC's take on events.” If many sites think that a particular
page is relevant for a given set of terms, that page can manage to rank well
even if the terms NEVER appear in the text itself.
In the example above,
"Jon Wye's Custom Designed Belts" would be the anchor text of this
link.
SEO
Best Practice
As search engines have
matured, they have started identifying more metrics for determining rankings. One metric that stood out among the rest was link relevancy. Link relevancy is
determined by both the content of the source page and the content of the anchor
text. It is a natural phenomenon that occurs when people link out to other
content on the web.
This is most easily
understood with an example. Imagine that someone writes a blog about whiteboard
markers. Ever inclined to learn more about their passion, they spend part of
their day reading what other people online have to say about whiteboard markers.
Now imagine that while reading on their favorite topic, the dry erase marker
enthusiast finds an article about the psychological effects of marker color
choice. Excited, she goes back to her website to blog about the article so her
friends can read about it.
When she writes the
blog post and links to the article, she gets to choose the anchor text for the
link pointing at the article. She could choose something like “click here,” but
more likely, she will choose something that it is relevant to the article. In
this case, she chooses “psychological effects of marker color choice.” Someone
else who links to the same article might use the link anchor text, "marker
color choice and its effect on the brain."
This human–powered
information is essential to modern-day search engines. The search engines can
use it to determine what the target page is about and thus, which queries it
should be relevant for. These descriptions are relatively unbiased and produced
by real people. This metric, in combination with complicated natural language
processing, makes up the lion's share of link relevancy indicators online.
Other important link
relevancy indicators are link sources and information hierarchy. For example,
the search engines can also use the fact that someone linked to the whiteboard
marker article from a blog about whiteboard markers to supplement their
algorithm's understanding of the given page's relevancy. Similarly, the engines
can use the fact that the original article was located at the URL
www.example.com/vision/color/ to determine the high-level positioning and
relevancy of the content.
With the Penguin
update, Google began to look more closely at keywords in anchor text. If too
many of a site's inbound links contain the exact same anchor text, it can start
to appear suspicious, and is often a sign that the links weren’t acquired
naturally. In general, it’s still a best practice to obtain keyword– and
topic–specific anchor text when possible. However, SEOs may get better results
by striving for a variety of anchor text rather than the same keyword each
time.
Key Points:
- If many links point to a page
with the right keywords in their anchor text, that page has a very good
chance of ranking well. Real examples of this include the search engine
result pages for the queries, "click here" and
"leave." Many of the Google results for these queries rank
solely due to the anchor text of inbound links.
- People have a tendency to link
to content using the anchor text of either the domain name or the title of
the page. This is an advantage to SEOs who include keywords they want to
rank for in these two elements.
- Too many inbound links to a
page with the exact same keyword-rich anchor text may cause Google to
scrutinize that site’s link profile more closely; using manipulative
methods to acquire keyword–rich anchor text is not recommended.
Importance of the
First Anchor Text
Experiments have shown
that if two links are targeting the same URL, only the anchor text used in the
first link is counted by Google.
More recently, several
webmasters have run experiments showing ways to count multiple anchor text phrases contained on
the same page and pointing to the same target. This is accomplished by creating
anchors on the target page and linking to those anchors using hashtags
<a
href="../blog/example-post#jtc142864">Second Anchor Text</a>
The anchor text is also known as the link label or link title. The words
contained in the anchor text helps determines the ranking that the page will
receive by search engines such as Google or Yahoo and Bing. Links without
anchor texts commonly happen on the web and are called naked URLs, or URL
anchor texts. Different browsers will display anchor texts differently, and
proper use of anchor text can help the page linked to rank for those keywords
in search engines.
Exact Match Anchor
Text
An
exact match anchor text has the same keywords highlighted as the targeted
keyword of a web page.
e.g. An
exact match anchor text on this page would be the keyword "anchor
text" hyperlinked to http://seo-tutorials-forall.blogspot.in/2014/02/anchor-text.html like so: anchor
text.
Anchor
Text Variation
When
websites aggressively build exact match anchor text links, a Google spam filter
is triggered. It is unnatural for web pages that link to your website to all
have exact match anchor texts. A bit of anchor text variation is natural, just
like how a great portion of the internet's links are naked urls.
e.g.
John runs a small dental clinic in Boston. His dental clinic
Anchor
Text Manipulation
As
a result of being a search engine signal for relevancy, it is possible to SEO
anchor text, and hence anchor text manipulation techniques and vocabulary
evolved.
Targeted
Anchor Text
Linkbuilders,
or SEOs specialized in building links to a website, often control the anchor
text from the links they build from other websites. These anchor texts are
targeted - the keywords in the anchor text will match the targetted keyword the
page an SEO is trying to rank on.
Backlink
Anchor Text
A
backlink is a link from another website. The backlink anchor text is the anchor
text used by other website linking to your website. The anchor text of these
backlinks help search engines determine the most relevant keywords a web page
should rank for.
One-Way
Achor Text Backlinks
If
website A links to website B with an anchor text backlink and website B does
not link back to website A, then you have an one-way anchor text backlink.
One-way anchor text backlinks are sought out by SEOs because PageRank juice flows one one domain
to another. It is believed that the more one-way anchor text backlinks a web
page has from websites with high PageRank, the better they will rank on search
engines.
Excessive
Anchor Text
Just
like keyword stuffing, you can have too much
anchor text on a given page. When there are too many keywords on a page linking
to too many other pages of a website, or all to the same page but with
different anchor texts, you have a case of excessive anchor text. The excessive
use of anchor text within your website can lead to Google penalties as it is
considered a spammy, user unfriendly practice.
Anchor
Text Distribution
Because
link builders are actively building links to their website with targeted anchor
text, particular keywords will have a higher share of a page's overall anchor
text distribution.
Spammy
Anchor Text
A
spammy anchor text is a link with an anchor text that has no relationship to
the page it exists on or the page it is linking to. Spammy anchor texts are a
common black
hat SEO tactics to
either temporarily rank for competitive keywords such as "pay day
loans" or "buy viagra" but can also be used as a tool to harm a
competitor's website or individual through negative SEO and Google bombing.
Natural
Anchor Text Vs Unnatural Anchor Text
When
web surfers link to your website, it is inevitable that you will get bad anchor
text that do not help identify your web page's topic. However, just like naked
URLs, these are natural occurances, and are not frowned upon by search engines.
On the flip side, the lack of naked URLs, the excessive use of anchor text, and
or a high number of targeted one-way anchor text backlinks are all signs of
unnatural anchor text distribution. Search engines like Google may
penalize websites that focused on manipulating anchor text when user experience
is compromised.
To
obtain natural anchor texts to your website, create good content and the links
and anchor text.
Related
Searches/ Disambiguation For Anchor Text
- anchor
text link
- seo
anchor text
- javascript
anchor text
- html
anchor text
- anchor
text tag
- wiki
anchor text
- website
anchor text
- web
anchor text
- vary
anchor text
- using
anchor text
- squidoo
anchor text
- search
anchor text
- replace
anchor text
- regex
anchor text
