OK to change the anchor text of a link?
-
I have built a link on behalf of a ciient in a long, well-written article on a reputable website that accepts contributor accounts. I therefore control the link.
I have since realised that the anchor text of the link could be optimized much better than it currently is (while still only being a partial match). Would I be punished by the algorithm for going in and changing the link?
I know it's not 100% "natural," but then we're SEOs, and i don't think it's too implausible that a website owner may go in and do the same... Maybe if I add some text as well, it would make things look more natural?
-
If they crawl the article again, and notice that the anchor text has changed, then it could put up a red flag.
Yes, indeed. I agree with Bernadette.
Every site should have some anchor text diversity. It keeps you from looking like you are trying to manipulate the search engines. This particular anchor text, which is not exactly what you want, could actually be extremely beneficial if lots of your other links have highly optimized anchor text.
I would not tweak this link. Google is watching.
-
Zakkyg, if the link was in an article, and Google has already crawled the link, then keep in mind that they DO know what that anchor text is, and have noted it. If they crawl the article again, and notice that the anchor text has changed, then it could put up a red flag. Typically, when an article is written, it's complete--if the anchor text changes or a link is added, it could potentially be turned into a paid link or "optimized" link, which is what you're doing.
Generally speaking, you have a limited time to get the anchor text updated... if it's an older post then it may not make a difference.
-
It would be highly unlikely you would be penalized for updating the anchor text in one blog. I would be more concerned if you had an alarmingly high number of exact match anchor text links pointing to your client's site.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How Many Links to Disavow at Once When Link Profile is Very Spammy?
We are using link detox (Link Research Tools) to evaluate our domain for bad links. We ran a Domain-wide Link Detox Risk report. The reports showed a "High Domain DETOX RISK" with the following results: -42% (292) of backlinks with a high or above average detox risk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
-8% (52) of backlinks with an average of below above average detox risk
-12% (81) of backlinks with a low or very low detox risk
-38% (264) of backlinks were reported as disavowed. This look like a pretty bad link profile. Additionally, more than 500 of the 689 backlinks are "404 Not Found", "403 Forbidden", "410 Gone", "503 Service Unavailable". Is it safe to disavow these? Could Google be penalizing us for them> I would like to disavow the bad links, however my concern is that there are so few good links that removing bad links will kill link juice and really damage our ranking and traffic. The site still ranks for terms that are not very competitive. We receive about 230 organic visits a week. Assuming we need to disavow about 292 links, would it be safer to disavow 25 per month while we are building new links so we do not radically shift the link profile all at once? Also, many of the bad links are 404 errors or page not found errors. Would it be OK to run a disavow of these all at once? Any risk to that? Would we be better just to build links and leave the bad links ups? Alternatively, would disavowing the bad links potentially help our traffic? It just seems risky because the overwhelming majority of links are bad.0 -
Linking to External Websites?
Is it good to link external websites from every page. Since, the on-page grader shows there should be one link pointing to an external source. I have a website that can point to an external website from every page using the brand name of the specific site like deal sites do have. Is it worth having external link on every page, of-course with a no-follow tag?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
H3 Tags - Should I Link to my content Articles- ? And do I have to many H3 tags/ Links as it is ?
Hello All, On my ecommerce landing pages, I currently have links to my products as H3 Tags. I also have useful guides displayed on the page with links useful articles we have written (they currently go to my news section). I am wondering if I should put those article links as additional H3 tags as well for added seo benefit or do I have to many tags as it is ?. A link to my Landing Page I am talking about is - http://goo.gl/h838RW Screenshot of my h1-h6 tags - http://imgur.com/hLtX0n7 I enclose screenshot my guides and also of my H1-H6 tags. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
What is the meaning of anchor text penalty?
If i have 70% back links with same anchor text, will i get penalized? some of my blog's pages which were previously in top 100 in google are no where now. but for other long tail keywords, m still in same position. How to get rid of this penalty? Should i create more links with different anchor text to reduce the effect or should i remove that 70% back links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | web2smspk0 -
Change to SiteLinks?
Hi All, Perhaps it's been like this all along (I don't think so) but can someone tell me why some pages with Google sitelinks now look like this (see the "Coke" search) while others look like this (see the "Amazon" search image). Is this because of Rich Snippet use? One of my client's SiteLinks used to resemble the Amazon one, but now resembles the Coke one (not preferred). Any input? Thanks, Chris Elevated Synergy Group - SEO coke.png amazon.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris.Bleill0 -
Can changing dynamic url of over 2000 pages site after a year will change its ranking
Hi- Have built site in joomla The urls are dynamic in nature with over a year - all pages are well indexed and backlinks been built over with these dynamic urls Need to know if i hire an agency to change over dynamic url to static url of these 2000 pages - will it also change all Search engine ranking positions of existing urls Will all the seo effort and backlinks build over 15 months will still hold valid or this will just back to square one due to change of urls is it advisable to get the url changed from dynamic to static one - especially when site is receiving over 75,000 visitors every month Thanks in advance. Look for expert suggestions
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
Anchor text
my website hit by penguin update on april; i check my anchor text and found that i had 1790 anchor links for " air conditioning nyc" i erase them almost a month ago but it still shows on the website report. how long it take seomoz see the changes and what about google. if someone have any idea how can i bring my site back to the top pages. thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eoberlender0 -
Competitors and Directory Links
Hi guys, wanted to get some input and thoughts here. I'm analyzing many competitor links for a specific client (even other clients actually as well) and come across a pretty heavy directory backlink profiles. has anyone here had success with directory listings? Seem many of the competitors backlinks are coming from directories. What say you?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PaulDylan1