Changing backlinks anchor text

[clickangel]

Hi,

I've read a few blog post here that suggests the strength of building links using your brand as an anchor text. This supposedly gives the site authority. Currently a chunck of the back links to my homepage are on generic terms i'm trying to rank for which doesn't seem to be working very well. I was thinking of contacting the various webmasters to change the anchor text to that of the site brand name but wondering if this will signal a manipulation of links to the search engines and potentially could be flagged as paid links?

Has anybody done this before and what is the danger of doing this?

Thanks

Duke

[SimonCullum]

Hi there

Changing the anchor text of inbound links that's already optimized for your non-brand target keywords will risk in reducing your rankings for those keywords; obviously depends on factors such as the quality of those inbound links, competition...

If you are already ranking top for your brand, then this doesn't seem like a worthwhile exercise to do, unless Brand is everything to your business.  If your brand is not ranking well, then by all means go for it for some existing inbound links.

If you can identify any inbound links on anchor text such as 'click here' or 'visit the website' then by all means try to get that anchor text changed, if the link is worth it.

In most cases, I'd suggest focusing on acquiring new relevant medium & high quality inbound links (natural links that is, not paid) with a variety of relevant anchor text, including both brand and non-brand.  This would be time better spent compared to changing existing links that may not help to achieve your goals;  increasing the number of relevant visitors to your site.

Hope that helps,

Regards

Simon

[clickangel]

Hi Simon,

Many thanks for your answer. The objective is not actually to rank better for the brand term. I thinking along the lines of the link profile and  how many of the achor text used are the brand compared to generic terms that we are trying to rank for. Apparently, there is the move towards rewarding inbound links on brand terms than generic term so the advise to webmasters is to build more links on their brand terms.

Hope this clears my question up.

Best regards

Duke

[SimonCullum]

Hi Duke

Thanks for the further info.

As the objective is to not rank better for brand terms, so rather it is to rank better for Non-brand terms, then it doesn't make any sense to focus inbound links on brand terms within the anchor text. That can be counter-productive towards those important Non-brand terms.

Brand is one of many factors when it comes to Search, which you seem to know already. The more brand mentions and links on brand terms, the more authority that brand acquires, in theory.

However that doesn't necessarily benefit Non-brand search.

So all-in-all, my advice is to focus link efforts on a natural blend of Brand and Non-brand links, catering for both is important.  Don't worry too much about changing existing branded links to non-brand, instead, focus on both types of links and anchor text moving forwards.

With best regards

Simon

[ResslerMotors]

What's your percentage of exact match links in your overall link landscape?  Is it over 20% (I would assume lower, but this is the number I've been hearing)?  If so, you are probably over-optimized for your phrase.  The best action would be to change the links to either your brand, or more preferably, to a similar phrase.

However, if you have less than 10% exact matching links, I wouldn't change those at all.  Exact match is still beneficial for ranking (but I doubt it will be forever), and you would actually have some room to grow with them.

With that in mind, remember to:

• Not focus on just one keyword at a time.  Gaining 50 Exact links in a row makes it obvious they aren't natural
• Use variations of your keyword, as well as exact.
• If it's your homepage, get a bunch of Brand links.
• Keep a couple poorly optimized links in there (unless they are from high quality sites!)

[clickangel]

Thanks for the info. Much appreciated guys.

Duke