16 replies to this topic

[DrQuincy]

Hi

For Google especially let's say you want to optimise your page for:

window cleaning Timbuktu
Timbuktu window cleaning

How would you go about doing the same for both phrases?

I am in a similar situation where I rank No.1 on Google for one way round but only no. 13 the other way round.

Thanks.

[mal4mac]

Getting the exact phrase in the title is quite important. I might create two pages -

"Window cleaning Timbuktu style"
"Timbuktu window cleaning using rope ladders"

I might experiment with combining the two in the title for your current page before bothering to write an extra page:

"Window cleaning Timbuktu style - Timbuktu window cleaning using rope ladders"

In this case, make sure the phrase doing badly occurs a few times in the body text and maybe <h1/2> or similar.

Link to the page using both phrases in the anchors. Link out from the page...

The main point is -- experiment!

[Jill]

Best bet is to get links pointing to that page using both phrases.

[mal4mac]

Best bet is to get links pointing to that page using both phrases.

Good move. But might be difficult to get external links following this pattern. Of course, you can use internal links! And should. Free lunch.

But don't have exactly 50% of each! Don't alternate each in your alphabetic list of pages! Google is the master of algorithms, and algorithms can spot patterns.

A systematic pattern will flag "SEO at work". You would probably still get Brownie points, but not as many as for a pattern that looks organic.

Best of all is to use the phrase that fits best on each page. If in doubt, use the phrase you are trying to rank for more often than the other phrase (but not 100%! Again an "SEO at work!" flag.)

In summary, I would try Jill's move first with internal links, as that's the easiest to implement and I'm lazy. If that doesn't work, try getting both phrases into the title. If that doesn't work, make two pages.

[jon-d]

mal4mac- Your missing the point completely. Have one page targetting "window cleaning Timbuktu". Then build EXTERNAL links with both variations as anchor text. (as Jill suggested)

[torka]

Actually, jon-d, IMO mal4mac didn't miss the point at all.

Jill just said "links," nothing about them being only external. Internal links will work just fine, and they're a heck of a lot easier to get, especially when you have specific anchor text in mind. No need to make extra work for yourself only going after external links.

Beyond that, it's totally possible -- probably even desirable -- to build a single page actively targeting two such very, very similar phrases in the on-page text, rather than only targeting one phrase with the on-page optimization and relying on links alone to secure the other.

--Torka

[mal4mac]

Yes, I did mean internal links. But be careful! I added about 12 internal links at once last week and now my page is nowhere :-( Might have been something else, but adding anchors quickly seems the most likely suspect. So add them slowly. Adding them 12 at a time may be organic (as in my case) but it may also be auto-spam. Adding them one at a time has to be natural, if anything is. Also, it's best to add them one at a time to get more insight into how number of links affects the ranking. I was just being lazy.

[torka]

I really, sincerely doubt that 12 internal links would have caused the issue all by themselves, even if they were totally keyword rich anchor text.

Just think, when you add a new page to your site navigation, if your site is bigger than 12 pages, that page gets more than 12 internal links pointing to it added all at once, and if you're doing a good job of providing descriptive navigational links it's very likely those links will have keywords in them.

Google et.al. are bound to know this (being as they run websites themselves), so it just seems really unlikely they'd do anything to penalize a site just because it decided to add a page to the navigation and use useful descriptive link anchor text. I mean, they say they want good, comprehensive site navigation, so why would they do anything to discourage just that very thing?

Not to mention that 12 links isn't really very many links at all in the overall scheme of things. At the very worst, I would think the only thing that would happen would be the page and its links would be flagged for review -- and I personally think it would take a lot more than a dozen links to do it -- upon which, any reviewer with more smarts than table salt would be able to tell everything was legit. So I strongly, strongly suspect those links had nothing to do with it.

IMO, I'm going to have to come down on the site of "coincidence" or "temporary glitch" or "something else going on that has nothing to do with those 12 links."

--Torka

[mal4mac]

Well predicted Torka! Temporary glitch it was. It was back with 24hrs. It wasn't even my latest page that came back, it was a cached page several days old.

But I still think Google need to do something to discourage automated linking. Therefore perhaps my adding twelve links at once was thought worthy of a quick bungie jump into the outer darkness. If I'd added a thousand links at once maybe I would have had a more serious ban?

[Randy]

Possibly mal4mac, but there are too many other effects in the equation to say Yes or No. There have been plenty of pages that accumulated many hundreds or even many thousands of links in a short period of time. Think buzz marketing tactics or when something goes viral.

If it was a brand new site or one that had a tiny link profile and no real trust built up yet with the search engine, such a large influx might cause them to raise an eyebrow and look under the covers to figure out why it happened. On the other hand if the same thing happened on a well established site that had a large linking profile and great trust built up from years of doing the right thing, they probably wouldn't even bother to look into it.

Let's put it this way...

If it were as easy to get sites penalized or banned as one might suspect simply by placing 1,000 crappy links pointing to some site, I might be just crazy enough and ruthless to make sure none of my real competitors ever appeared in the SERPs with me.

(Just kidding. I wouldn't do it, but I guarantee you others would!)

[mal4mac]

Possibly mal4mac, but there are too many other effects in the equation to say Yes or No. There have been plenty of pages that accumulated many hundreds or even many thousands of links in a short period of time. Think buzz marketing tactics or when something goes viral.

If something goes viral it's liable to lead to many *different* *external* anchors appearing at once. Automated links are likely to follow some pattern. It would be difficult for to generate external anchors with an organic viral feel.

If it were as easy to get sites penalized or banned as one might suspect simply by placing 1,000 crappy links pointing to some site, I might be just crazy enough and ruthless to make sure none of my real competitors ever appeared in the SERPs with me.

Why should Google care if a few white hats get penalised? White hats should be watching who is linking to them, and they should tell Google if something nasty happens. Has any black hat ever attempted this kind of anchor bombing? Would they? It's like shooting up main street from the edge of town. Marshall Google would surely send out the posse tout suite, and put a fire wall around main street within minutes.

[Randy]

Has any black hat ever attempted this kind of anchor bombing? Would they?

Well, I wouldn't call them black hats because real black hats are much, much smarter.

But if you change the phrase black hats to the phrase uninformed competitors, the answers are yes and yes. I've had competitors try it with my sites several times. Poor them, going to all of that work for nothing.

[1dmf]

now I thought you couldn't hurt someones site by linking to them, it is you who gets penalised for haviung the link to them if they are a bad neighbourhood?

Why should I have to spend time worrying about who has linked to me and how?

[adibranch]

you shouldnt.. the theory being that you cant control who links to you.

[Jill]

You only have to worry about who links to you if the vast majority of your links are all from crappy places.

If you have good, authoritative, relevant links, then the bad ones shouldn't affect your site.