Inbound Links & Anchor Text

The Power Of Anchor Text

Successful search engine optimization employs many factors. However, one of the most important factors is the anchor text of inbound links. Because Google, among other search engines, puts a significant amount of weight on the anchor text of inbound links, anchor text can be a decisive factor when going after top ranking on extremely competitive search terms.

Precisely how powerful is anchor text of inbound links? It is entirely possible to achieve top ranking for extremely competitive keywords without any hint of on-page-elements SEO.

Monster.com currently sits in the #1 spot for the search term Jobs. The word "jobs" does not even appear on that page in text form; the only occurrence is once in the form of ALT text.

Search Google for Computers. At this time, six of the top ten pages do not contain the word Computers in the page copy. They are there due solely to anchor text of inbound links.

Search Google for Profit. At this time, 7 of the top ten pages do not contain the word Profit in the page copy. They are there due solely to anchor text of inbound links.

Search Google for Promote. At this time, 5 of the top ten pages do not contain the word Promote in the page copy. They are there due solely to anchor text of inbound links.

Search Google for Advertise. At this time, 6 of the top ten pages do not contain the word Advertise in the page copy. They are there due solely to anchor text of inbound links.

Same thing applies when you do a search for leave, for which Yahoo! is listed in the #1 spot. Yahoo is also #1 for the search term exit, due solely to the anchor text of hundreds of mature content sites.

Use

So how do you, as an SEO, utilize the power of anchor text? The easiest - most cost effective - way is to choose a descriptive name for your site, and by descriptively naming your folders and files.

Domains

Descriptive domains with keywords in the domain name will benefit from a much higher CTR than non-descriptive domains.

File Naming

Looking through the traffic logs of websites we maintain is a daily chore. Early detection of shifts in search engine ranking is a must in this business. One thing I've often noticed is search strings containing words that appear neither on the page, nor in anchor text of inbound links - except where the URL of the page has been used as anchor text. This is where we see the benefit of descriptive file naming.

To give a poor example, I recently noticed this search string in the traffic logs of FlashWebHost.com: "search engine optimization"

But those words don't appear in the link text of inbound links! Unless, of course, you use the URL itself as link text: www.flashwebhost.com/search_engine_submission.php.

As one of the most powerful search engine optimization tactics, we believe that link-building should be a high priority in any search engine optimization campaign.