Keeping Anchor Texts the Same

[bigcat1967]

I was glad to see one of my client's sites move up 101 spots today - though, it's still not close to the first page and I know it's going to get tougher since I'm running into legitimate competition.

But how I did it really puzzles me, I guess in a good way. I would leave a few backlinks from relevant forums and then leave regular sig links from SEO forums such as this. I did however create 15 Web 2.0 properties - but - these are not indexed as of yet, so I know that they didn't help.

There is going to be a lot of ppl disagree w/ me about this - but I'm believing now since I'm moving up (so far anyway) is because I kept the anchor text the same. In the past, I would have different variances of my anchor text, but this time, I thought I would try a little experiment - and so far, it is working.

What do you guys think? If you keep your anchor texts the same - will it hurt or help? Seemed like it is helping me - but I might be bragging a little to soon...

[minstrel]

It is better to use variations in the anchor text. You don't need to make them markedly different and all of the variations should target at least one of your primary keywords but they should not be all the same.

Theon for this is the emphasis by all search engines on so-called "organic linking", as opposed to what Google calls "artificial linking practices or schemes".

In genuine organic linking, your anchor text will not be all the same. Some will link to your domian name or URL. Others will use different anchor text depending on why they are highlighting your site - for my sites, for example, non-artifical links might target psychology, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, etc., etc. as anchor text, depending on the cintext in which the link occurs.

In practice, ALL links are useful - don't forget the value of what is called "the long tail". For a specific keyword, you would get maximum benefit from having ALL links use that keyowrd in the anchor text. But that may get you penalized or may result in some of those links being discounted.

As a final comment, there has just been a Google update of sorts, so that relatively sudden change in tanking may be due more to Google changes than to anything you have done very recently. That's one of the problems inherent in following search engines.

[lexdino]

You know that Google changes some of their algoriths=ms regularly, so dont think because your "same in all anchor text" experiment success might last long but I pray it does last long.

[amoona]

I usually keep 70%-80% of my anchor text exactly the same as my target keyword, and for the rest 30%-20% back links, I use some variations in order to keep the link campaign looks natural.