3 replies to this topic

[jeepster]

I'm a relative SEO newbie but I (think I) know about varying anchor text in backlinks.

Eg, if I'm trying to optimise for the term "blue widgets", I understand that to look natural, some links should say "red and blue widgets", "widgets that are blue", "widgets", "cheap blue widgets", etc.

What I'm unsure of is roughly what percentage should ideally have "mydomain" or "mydomain.com" or even just "visit this site" -- ie have no targeted anchor text at all.

[Jill]

There is, of course, no magical percentage.

Think about it: if the links really were natural (which is what Google wants) then would there be a specific percentage of each anchor text?

Nope.

[jeepster]

There is, of course, no magical percentage.

Think about it: if the links really were natural (which is what Google wants) then would there be a specific percentage of each anchor text?

Nope.

Thanks for the reply.

To clarify my question: I've seen Dan Thies suggest it begins to look unnatural if you have much more than 50 per cent of your links with targeted anchor text. I've heard others say you can go as high as 80 per cent. Then again I've seen some websites hit virtually 100 per cent.

I'm not after a magical number, more a rule of thumb. As a commercial site I do go out and ethically obtain links (usually by writing articles for authority sites); I'm just trying to gauge -- ballpark figure -- how much targeted anchor text is too much and what is just enough.

[Jill]

Well, I don't have an answer because I only believe in natural links.

But I'd go with Dan's no more than 50% if you need a number (since he's a mod. here).