Anchor Text Best Practices for Google by Roger Montti #416

The SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebResults. My name is Matt Berksham, your SEO expert. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of our podcast. This is podcast number 416. Oh, wow. As always, we have a tip from our previous podcast. We need to make sure our video guy has the camera in the right mode, where he's going to turn off the screen and, oh, turn on the screen and then press the red button. We're going to have an intermission here. Now, we always have a tip, and the tip from the previous podcast is... If you want to become a topical expert on a subject, just read my book. That's right. Last time, we were talking about being an expert on a particular topic, and Matt has a book coming out really soon. I'm finishing one edit pass, so make sure you check out that book. Title? BuildYourBrandmania.com. BuildYourBrandmania.com. Subscribe. Follow. Boom! Boom! Yeah, I'm still working on the landing page, so don't go there yet. Yeah, don't go to the website yet. All right, so I wanted to jump into this after... So, we are here in Houston, Matt and I. Yeah, we are. We are. We're here in Houston. We're your results rebels! And we do have a review, so that's really exciting. It is, of course, five stars, and it actually was posted on agencyspotter.com by Chrissy Colton. Punch in the face to you, Chrissy Colton. By the way, some of the nuances of this podcast really kind of created memes around the office, and we'll talk about that, so it's kind of fun. It says, had a free 15-minute phone call, which was amazing. Such valuable advice and feedback. I learned so much and have already made changes to my website, as advised, by Johan Pada. Even did a screen share thing to show me what I needed to change. Bless him. He even emailed me some bullet points after. Such a nice man, and what a great company. I feel like I know

you all since I've been listening to the podcast for ages. Hope one day I can save for the website analysis. That's the plan. Punch in the face to you, Chrissy. And because you said bless him, we kind of have crowned Johan Saint Johan around here. And there's a meme that we have internally. We probably should share it externally of Saint Johan. So, very cool. Punch in the face to you, Chrissy, for sending that in. And if you're returning to the podcast, it may be because we give good tips and suggestions and ideas about internet marketing. If you'd like, I don't know, maybe a PDF of five online marketing mistakes that could tank your business and how to avoid them, you can get that by going to eWebResults.com slash SEO tip. Nice and easy. If you have not listened to the podcast before, howdy. Welcome to the podcast. This is called the potatoes of the podcast. We'll get into the meat here shortly. Again, if you've listened before, you know, we run a contest each and every week. We do. And this week, the contest is a winner. You guys are all winners. The way it works is if we get 10 shikos. A share, a like, and a follow. If we get 10 shikos on any one of our platforms or profiles on platforms, and we get a review, then we move the place where we tell you how to leave us a review to the end. We're going to get Pinterest going, so we'll get a repin. Get a repin. So we're going to count repins here soon, too. I think it's a great idea. And so we did that. So we're going to skip it. I'm going to give you a teaser. We're actually covering today an article by Roger Moti, and it's Anchor Text Best Practices for Google, a pretty interesting article where he kind of got some, reached out to some other experts, including himself, and got some opinions about Anchor Text. So we talk about keyword-rich Anchor Text and making

sure that you're not spamming your Anchor Text that's for the links coming back to your site. So everybody's got an opinion about that. But we're going to jump in, and we'll give our two cents as well. By the way, speaking of Mr. Raji Moti, if you are in a position right now and you can tweet, we would like you to tweet. Make sure you tag us in it. Hashtag SEO Podcast, at Best SEO Podcast, at EWebResults, and then at Martini Buster. So Roger Moti has gone by the Twitter handle of Martini Buster. Make sure you include him, tell him that you're listening to his article, Anchor Text Best Practices for Google, and we'll appreciate that. That'll be very kind of you. So thank you. Thank you. Next, if you would like a free website analysis, by the way, you just heard Chrissy was very enthusiastically complimentary of our free website analysis, go to ewebresults.com and you'll find the free web analysis button there. However, news. So we had some sad news here in Houston, really across the country, and more specifically here in Houston. Barbara Bush passed away this week on April 17th. The public viewing is in Houston. It's open to the public, I think, for a couple of days now. So anyway, our thoughts and prayers with the Bush family. And then The Verge reports that Google will be abandoning its most recent messaging app called Google Allo. I haven't even heard of it. Did you even, exactly. I haven't even heard of it. It's been out like a year and a half, and they're pulling the plug on it. So no one's really surprised because, you know, you haven't heard of it. So that is the deal. All right, that is the potatoes of the podcast. Let's get into the meat. Again, anchor text, best practices for Google. Anchor text is the text used in the links to your site. It used to be that if you acquire enough links with the appropriate keywords in the anchor text, that your site would

begin to rank for those keywords. Makes sense, right? Yeah. But at some point, websites experienced penalizations for having statistically unnatural ratios of anchor text links, right? Why not? Google caught on. I think it's all Matt cuts. It's all because of Matt cuts. What is the best practice for the use of anchor text today is what we're going to dive into. So that's the gist of the article. Cool. Some believe that the search engine results pages, also known as SERPs, can be studied and the best anchor text ratios for each niche can be discovered. And so Roger's going to kind of go into some details why that's not true, actually, that you can't just look at the websites that are placing really well. Bullshit detected. Take precautions. So if people are out there saying, oh, the ratio is 33.45 percent, there's a lot of challenges with that. So one of the big challenges is like you have a causal relationship and a casual, there's another causal versus something else, statistical. It's not casual. It's a casual relationship. You have a casual relationship with those links. That was before we were married. We don't have casual relationships anymore. It's a causal relationship and then just like a corollary relationship, which means it happens to go along with, right? And so I can give lots of examples. What he says, so you may look at, okay, these websites have really good placement and then you may go look at all of the links that are linking to them and the anchor text associated with those links and then come up with a ratio. The problem with that is it's not that those sites necessarily are in those positions on the SERP because of that anchor text. It's all of these other factors and so you're really, he's going to just kind of argue that you're spitting into the wind kind of thing. So ranking impact, not related to links. So there's four ranking impacts he says that are not related to links. Okay. A poor user experience. So

you got too many ads, you got poor web speed, you got mobile friendliness. So let's say there is an ideal anchor text ratio and there probably is. It's whether we can figure it out, right? And it may be related to per industry, right? If you could discover that and apply it to your particular website with a lot of link volume, right? So a lot of backlinks, but your website speed sucked or your mobile friendliness was sucked or you had too many ads on your page, then it wouldn't matter. And so if you're trying to reverse engineer into this, you're just probably not going to get there. Next is some sites are popular and users expect to see those sites when they do a search, right? So it's just what people expect and we talk about this at our office about just the, it's called brand lift, right? So just because you have a good brand and that brand is well represented in a number of places, not just in the online environment, you'll actually end up being in a better position on the SERPs and that would have nothing to do with your anchor text potentially. Some sites are ranked at the top because of their geographic location. So there's variability in geographic location. So you may have this site that is related to, I don't know, say internet marketing and because it's, and it may have the perfect anchor text ratio and they may not place well because they're not in Houston, right? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. And then he says, because the user intent demands a result that provides a comparison of various product providers. So again, this goes back to the user's driving things. So have you heard of the modification engine? No. No. No. Okay. So I haven't really heard of it. We talk about it, right? We talk about it regularly. In fact, in a meeting we had yesterday with Mo, we were talking about how great you got these search results and now based on who clicks where,

right? And how long they stay there or maybe they stay there and then they come back. Okay. That, that, that Google might bump somebody up because it seems that that user had a better experience on that particular website. So we talk- That, that's the modification? That's what he's talking about, right? So, so check this out. So what the, like how many, how many, how much time on page, how many different pages they look at, all the data, that's the modification? Potentially. So right, so when a site is ranked, right? That's the core algorithm, right? Yeah. Or the ranking engine. Yeah, ranking engine. And then he says, the modification engine plays a large role in re-ranking the SERPs. So let's say we start naked, no users have seen any of the SERPs and then boom, based on the, the, the crawl that Google has done and their algorithm, they're going to show this result, right? And it's a kind of a fixed result. And now users start visiting it and Google starts adjusting the results, right? So there are studies that we've talked about on this podcast where, um, where, where people with a big following were like, Hey, go search this. I'm on the second page in position 12 and click my link and they do that and it comes up. Okay. That's clearly modified from the original SERP because. Well, Google takes, takes like, I've seen it just same, like same day. They'll, they'll rotate, like they'll see, is this getting more clicks or more time on page or more completion, goal completions, like, and they'll, they'll rotate when you launch something new or if you modify old page, it'll do the same thing. That's why I like updating the old page. You get some initial lift, right? Right. To, to see how well it does with the new stuff. I didn't know that there, I thought that was just kind of part of all of what Google's doing. I guess it's broken. It's kind of second, it's a second tier piece of it.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So it's, it has a parallel in Facebook, right? So Facebook will say, Hey, you've got a new post on your business page, and this is probably significantly decreased, but I'm going to take, take that post on your new business page and show it to just 5% of your audience. Oh, okay. And if that 5% of your audience interacts with it, I'm going to show it to all of your audience. So it's just another algorithm. Right. Yeah. Okay. So he actually says that there's a patent that Google has that's founded around modifying search result ranking based on implicit user feedback and a model of presentation bias. And so that's, that, so some of it, you know, like, is this result good? There's a question in there, like, you know, do you like this result? Well, you know, people answering no is not part of the algorithm. It's part of this kind of modification. Don't show me these type of ads. He says, then logically, this means that any anchor text ratios you extract, right, from doing this analysis of good position are meaningless since other factors influence why a page is ranked. I would argue bullshit on that one. Yeah. DEFCON 5, bullshit. They're not meaningless, right? They have less value. Then you're like, hey, this is the reason. There's certainly some relevance to them. There's 200 ranking factors. Great. We understand it. And the algorithms are larger than just anchor text. Great. You know what one of the biggest ranking factors is? I don't. Google Plus. Google Plus. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right above backlinks, right? Yep. So just work on your Google Plus. Don't worry about backlinks anymore. No, I'm just kidding. Now, when you say Google Plus, is that Google My Business or is that Google Plus? No, Google Plus. Okay, so like really the authorship, like the authorship update has really started to affect a lot of stuff. Well, which came and then came way into favor and then fell out of favor, but it's still sticking around.

Well, I mean, social's the new SEO kind of thing. Hey, Brian Lobeg. Hey. Just punch in the face to you. Hey, we want to give a shout out. Excuse me. Punch in the face to all of the YouTubers out there, too. E-Web YouTubers. Punch in the face to Brian. Again, we got a, yeah, he gave us a great review and an article on his page, and so really, really appreciate that. So what Roger did now is he went out and queried some experts in the industry. One of them is Julie Joyce. She's with Linkfish Media, right? Yeah, they're good. And she says her thing was a site that has 75% exact match anchors. So, again, that's other sites that link back, so backlinks into your website. And then the text that is associated with those backlinks, that text is an exact match for a keyword, right? Yeah. So if all of them are the exact same, then it feels like you're out there manipulating. So she says, you know? No, keep on. So she says that if there's a 75% of our exact match, it's going to look unnatural. For sure. She also says that even though I know it's naughty, there is the odd occasion when I overdo it, and it works, but it doesn't stick. Yeah. So I think other factors have become more important for ranking. Now, interesting, just along the lines of the conversation we were just having, if you get these exact match rankings and they work, but there's no engagement on the page that you were able to get to the first page, that could explain why they're not sticking. Sure, sure, sure. Just an interesting thing. I mean, like, I would say when you're building out ranks or anchor text, sorry. No, I'm just doing, yeah. But if you're building out anchor text, okay, you've got to create some long-tail phrases. Don't, like, exact match everything. It's really obvious to Google. So you want to have some naked links or your domain name, maybe some of your company

name, and then some long-tail phrases that maybe include some of those things. Now, anytime you include a geo-specifically, Google looks even more specifically at that. Suspiciously. Suspiciously. So, you know, you just want to have a good variety. But, yeah, anytime the word they're searching for or the name of your company that's in the link, it's going to carry more weight. Yep. So. Yep. It will be less suspicious. Yeah. Next, he asked Bill Slousky, right? He's with GoFish Digital. Bill Slousky, by the way, is the preeminent expert on search engine patents, according to Roger here. Okay. And Bill says it is possible that Google could be looking at a window of words around a link-associated text for those links. So that's saying, so, yes, you've got this anchor text, right? That's the text that is part of the link. And then there's words around that anchor text. And if those words are totally irrelevant, how much impact does that have? So you've got another complication. It's not just, hey, is it exact match keywords in the anchor text? Yeah. It's also, is it, you know, exact match keywords in the anchor text? And then the surrounding body of, say, paragraph or so is relevant or irrelevant. And then if the link's in the first paragraph on the page, it has even more weight. Right. Right. So there's all these little modifiers that you can elevate your link juice. Yep. Very cool. And again, he says it's still a very important ranking factor. This is by Matt Digity, right, with Digity Marketing. Or is it Diggity? It's probably Diggity. I like Diggity. Matt Digity with Diggity Marketing. That's just a cool name. Yeah. I wish I had a cool name like Diggity. He says, I do indeed feel like I'm not getting the same movement as back in the day. From target anchors sent from links. But is that due to anchor text getting less weight? Yes. Or the links themselves becoming less of a ranking factor in the grand scheme? Yes. Yeah. So, well, the links

are still pretty damn important. Well, no, they're pretty important, but they're a little bit less. But every little thing that you do impacts it, right? Yeah. And so, I mean, even still having a domain with the word that people are searching, that's still really effective. Right, right. Like, because if they're searching for that, you're going to come up, like, on the first page. Right. Because they're typing in what you're searching. Right. And I see a lot of companies doing that, and there's games you can play, but it still works, even though it's not weighted as high. Right. You know? Right. It's still an absolutely important factor. Uh-huh. We say it's still 40%. So, really, Roger wraps this up. There's no consistent on the best way to use anchor text. Even Bill Slavsky points out that the surrounding text is important, you know, to supplement that anchor text. Julie Joyce agrees that there's a mix of anchor plus surrounding text, but there's really no consensus. And I'll tell you, when I got this article, I really didn't kind of read through the entire thing. I kind of glanced at it, and I was hoping that it would have some sort of, like, ratios. Like, what should those ratios be? I love that, yeah. And there were no ratios. There's no ratios by either Roger or Julie or Bill or Matt. Sounds like there should be an infographic out there. Yeah. And the infographic, I mean, if all you can do is the best you can guess, right? So, we've got experience doing it. We have a sense of what feels natural. Then, you know, let's put a number on it. Well, I mean, if I was to put a number on it, I would just, you know, I would say, have a few outbound links to high authority sites. From your site. From your site. From your site. And then have internal links and, you know, five to seven. Right. Typically, I would say two to three outbound links. And then, you know, just mix it

up based on what you're talking about internally. Right. And I think if you keep that ratio and just make it natural and not worry so much about that. Now, I think anger text, when you're doing off-page stuff, that's more where, you know, it becomes more of a debate. Right. Right. But, again, it's, is it a user experience that someone's going to like, engage with you. And you've got to make ways for them to engage with you. There's some little tips and tricks on how to do that. We should probably make a little. Infographic about that. Infographic. Article. Or downloadable. Yeah. Like, lead magnet about that. But, really, you just got to, you got to do, you got to be doing it. Right. Like, I think. Step one, make sure you are doing link building. If you're, if you're doing that, you're probably ahead of the game. Well, and on the anchor text, just, just mix it up. But make sure you're doing it and not have a consistent, like, everything's, like, the domain. All one. Right. Or the name of the company. Because it doesn't work natural. So, you just be natural when you do it. Right. Like, that's. So, you said, you said, so you've got anchor text as one. Right. So, just the keyword anchor text. You've got long tail. Yeah. And so, long tail, you could have a really good mix of that. Right. Because you're, it's easy to make lots of long tail from some base anchor text phrase. Oh, yeah. Then you've got a naked. A naked. A naked. The name of the company. Name of the company. And then, like, maybe, like, four or five different kind of long tail phrase. Long tails. Right. I wouldn't go after exact match phrases if you do that just maybe one time or two times. Well, yeah. If you're only going to do one link. Yeah. Exact match. Okay. Yeah. Right. So, go for the exact match. Yeah. But I would say we've got a pretty good name. Right. So, we've got

anchor text. We've got long tail. Which includes anchor text. We've got naked. Yeah. We've got, and then we've got the company name. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You could even put an author name, but if we just go with those four, I would say, I think a 25% ratio is probably reasonable. And you could throw some locations into some of those, but change up the location like Houston, and then Texas, and then Houston, TX, and then, like, so mix it up. Yeah. And that would be part of the, the, the 20. Yeah. Yeah. But just be careful because Google, if you're, if you're doing anything off page, that's, Google's going to look at that big time. So, my number is 25%, like 25% raw anchor text, 25% some longer tail, 25% naked URL, and 25% company. And if you're in that range, right, because I agree with Roger, you can't know, but a lot of times people are reaching, trying to talk, reach out to experts like us and like, okay, I know you can't know, but, and, and, and Julie actually mentioned 75%, obviously way too off. So, 25%. Well, that's my number. Well, everybody's trying to, like, hit an exact number. Hold on a second. 25%. That's my number. Call it a day. I had to throw the piece of paper. And what were you going to say? No, I'm done. Is that the, is that, is that, is that, is that, is that, is that, is that, is that. Drop mic. All right. Well, punch in the face to you, Roger. It's a great article. Great that you reached out to experts in the industry. And, and yeah, there's no consensus. And my number is 25%. And it, you know, it's as good as any number because no number was given. I mean, exactly 25.25% for each. And then, wait, that's more than 100. So, that's not going to work. So, 24.7. Okay, we'll do 24.8. And then that last little bit, use my name. Just use my name on whatever's left over. All

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