Although we’re primarily a PPC company, we’ve always believed in the power of SEO as a marketing channel, and in fact our business is highly dependent on organic search traffic, so we take this stuff seriously. Due to Google’s evolving algorithm and continuing battle against search spam, we’ve reconsidered some of the tactics that have seemingly worked for us in the past, for two reasons:
- Recent evidence suggests these tactics might no longer be effective in increasing rankings/traffic (and therefore not a good use of our time)
- Recent evidence suggests these tactics might be actively targeted and penalized by Google(meaning they could hurt our site rather than simply having no effect)
Read on to learn the SEO strategies that we’re easing up on and why.
Over-Optimized Anchor Text
Anchor text used to be considered a strong and valid signal about the content of a link destination. Optimizing your anchor text to tell Google where a link was pointing was considered SEO best practicewhether you were linking internally or externally. For example, if you were linking to a page about hedge trimmers, you should use the words “hedge trimmers” as the anchor text for the hyperlink, rather than generic language like “click here.” This told Google – and your readers, as a bonus! – that the link would take them to a page about hedge trimmers.
The problem? Overzealous SEOs have taken advantage of this (perfectly valid, user-friendly) SEO tactic, and now Google appears to have earmarked it as a sign of over-optimization or manipulation. For example, if a certain page has 500 links to it with the exact same anchor text (like “mesothelioma lawyer”) that’s a sign that the links may be paid for or otherwise unnatural. But what is the tip-off point where “good SEO” turns into “too much” or “bad SEO”? Nobody knows.
Back in November of 2012, Rand Fishkin predicted that “anchor text may be a fading factor (still powerful, just on the downswing) while co-occurrence … is becoming stronger.” This is how he explains co-occurrence (emphases mine):
Google is getting a lot smarter about this. A ton of articles that mention backlink analysis, how to look at backlinks, talk about Open Site Explorer. Some of them link to it. Some of them don't. But because Open Site Explorer is very commonly cited in addition to the keyword phrase "backlink analysis," you're seeing OSE do really well for that query term.
This, in my opinion, is one of the kind of future looking elements of how we're going to do SEO, brand association, having people write about us and do PR about our brands, associating those terms together so that very frequently when you see an authoritative, high quality source mention a keyword phrase, talk about a keyword phrase, they're mentioning your brand. They're linking to your site. They don't even necessarily have to link to exactly your page. This type of SEO is something that's not very practiced today, but it certainly should be on a lot of people's minds for the future. http://ajmalseotips.blogspot.com/
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