Tue 28 Jul 2009
Why Vary Anchor Text In Linkbuilding Campaigns
Blurb by Shaun Anderson (Hobo)Someone asked me why should they vary anchor texts in linkbuilding.
Imagine you could see Googlebot record your links as it finds them by spidering sites in real time.
Even, consider, that’s your link profile recently generated.
Hmmm. I wonder how hard it is for the brainiest people in search to pick out your natural links and ignore / devalue the rest 
-but can you spot the worthwhile manufactured link that might slip past?
Unatural mass link aquisition might well be discounted or be totally ignored. I think it totally depends on the site you are getting the links from though. 5 trusted sites? Hell, don’t bother mixing that anchor text up at all.
Most times you need a gun at a gun fight, but you have to do it smarter than the above in 2009.
Note – This is a visualisation I use. I don’t know if this is the way it actually works of course, nobody does. (Check out our beginner’s guide to search engine optimisation for more).
Originally Published on: Jan 15, 2009 @ 13:00
Republished as part of Hobo Link Building For Beginners Month
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Useful yes. It gives me more to think about even if it is only a representation. Not sure I can spot the manufactured link though. I am still a bit green with this stuff but learning fast I hope.
Shaun,
Would you not think that when the links is created/found has an impact as well? If Google sees a new site with no links suddenly generate hundreds of links all different, then it could be looked upon with suspicion? At the end of the day there is only so much variation you can have on the anchor text for “loans”, so surely if they are drip fed into the net, then it could be seen as “natural”?
David
I think you’d be surprised just how mixed natrual organic links are. You could get 100 links and none of the links contain the word ‘loans’ to a loan website.
I think the point is not to be too obvious with the anchor text. I suppose you could use any words that are on the page if they can be included in a sentence.
What about sites like official professional registers. They usually have a relatively good page rank, but when they do links to their memebers they tend to use the word “website” as the anchor text on all of the links. Do you think approaching them asking to change the text would make much difference? Or is just having the link from them enough? Any thoughts?