Ranking Riddle: Too many anchor text links, or not enough of the right ones???

[GregB123]

This question is about one of my ecommerce sites (www.BestDryingRack.com) which is ranking really well for one of it's money words, and not at all for the other.

See the attached screenshot for a quick overview of the riddle we are facing....

Looking at the "Anchor Text" tab in my MOZ Campaign or in Open Site Explorer would lead you to think that I have WAY too many links with my #1 money phrase. (clothes drying rack, or laundry drying rack, as they are synonyms). And since my product page doesn't rank at all for that keyword, that's what I thought too. (My home page does show up on page 3 or 4 when Googling clothes drying rack)

On the other hand, my #2 money phrase (umbrella clothesline, or outdoor umbrella clothesline) has it's product page ranking quite well in the middle of the first page of Google results.

Digging deeper into the links spreadsheet from Open Site Explorer shows that most of the links are NOFOLLOW (which means they don't really count, right?)

As the screenshot shows, here is the breakdown of links that count:

FOLLOW links with Brand and URL anchor text totals 17

FOLLOW links with #1 money phrase anchor text totals 10, with only 1 to proper product page

FOLLOW links with #2 money phrase anchor text totals 3, with all 3 to proper product page

So the riddle is... Can we improve the ranking of the #1 money phrase by just getting a small number of matching anchor text links to the proper page? (making it like #2's situation)

Or do we also need to get rid of some of the 9 links with the #1 anchor text that are pointing to the home page? (since the home is outranking the proper product page for this phrase)

BDR-anchors-040614.jpg

[carl_daedricdigital]

Hi, did you get any warnings in WMT about the site? I've had clients who have received a penalty (not our doing!!) for over optimised baclinks. They could still rank for other keywords but the keywords which they had been promoting too much were down on page 4 or 5.

Carl.

[GregB123]

Hi Carl. No warnings in WMT.

And since the vast majority of the links are NOFOLLOW, they shouldn't count towards any algorithmic penalty either. (that's the common opinion at least)

[jimthornton]

I'm not sure. But just an observation, you have more linking root domains nofollow or not for the first three specific generic anchor text money phrases than for branded terms. That seems a bit unnatural to me 1. because of the brand vs. generic contrast for 3 highly related terms and 2. because its exact match for high traffic generic and then the number of linking route domains for related anchor text terms drops off significantly instead of a smoother curve

I'm not saying its penalty level unnatural. But in the context of the well known brands you're competing with, of which most of them above you I recognize, they likely beat you out on the brand metrics.

Additionally, your first money terms are much more competitive from what I can see in terms of search volume than your second terms. Like clothes drying rack is getting 4000+ searches a month while the umbrella one is listed as 30. And trends confirms that contrast:  http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q="clothes drying rack"%2C"outdoor umbrella clothesline"

I don't really believe in getting rid of links unless I'm walking into a clients site already penalized. Maybe one or two if I have control over them over time. I think you should pivot into brand building and testing different content assets for deeper links, video maybe? If they don't perform naturally at all, cut them or revise/enhance them. That will insulate you better from the risk of aggressive link building that's been done and help raise all phrases over time.

And nofollow does matter. A lot. As well as nofollow vs. follow break down across brand vs generic anchor text in the context of your industry. A strong natural link profile example in your industry would be hard to find because your so niche competing with conglomerates. But being extremely natural (ie. not trying to have any control over the anchor text of sites linking to you at all)