Managing Inbound Anchor Texts

[darrenbooy]

Hey all,

I have a web-shop selling server hosting and my home page has over 5000 inbound links from my customers.

My question is that most of these have the same anchor text to my homepage which links to my homepage META tags and a few keywords there.    Is this good practice?   Should the anchor text vary per customer and if so how?

I would say no as this is too difficult to manage and doesn't add to the 'user experience' if it does vary but always good to ask others!!

Also, as the customers aren't totally relevant to my own product (although the anchor text is) would this also be hurting my ranking?

Thanks

[Hurf]

More often than not, you wouldn't be expected to have any particular influence over these inbound links - assuming they have come about naturally.

A popular site (which doesn't engage in illicit practices) will, over time, gain a high percentage of nofollow links (MOZ, for example has a split of around 60% nofollow/40% follow), the anchor text will vary, and usually links to a relevant page within the site i.e. the kind of anchor text you see across good quality blogs, which reference external sources/articles. A percentage of these inbound links will also be "naked" i.e. a straight hyperlink showing the URL in full. Expect to see a good few brand anchor text links, too (Moz). So, "good" sites, get a broad mix, of good/bad and indifferent anchor text links split between follow and nofollow.

Conversely, "bad sites" (who try to game the system) will have a disproportionately high number of exact match keyword anchor with an extremely high percentage being follow links, quite often from lower quality or irrelevant sites and they stick out a mile when you do any backlink analysis.

If you have any influence over this process it might help you get a better understanding of this by taking a good look at the backlink profile of a big player within your vertical (who is unlikely to need to try and cheat the system) in Open Site Explorer.

If you're not going out of your way to manipulate your rankings you should be able to let the anchor text links develop naturally, without concerning yourself too much about it.

So, in summary, "Should the anchor text vary per customer and if so how?"

Yes. You would expect to see it vary significantly, especially when spread from a broad range of sources and in numbers, as highlighted previously. Natural links look natural (you'll smell the bad ones a mile off!).

**As the customers aren't totally relevant to my own product (although the anchor text is) would this also be hurting my ranking? **

**No. **Not if they are out of your control, gained naturally, and vary in nature. Millions of links are created between sites of all different varieties, every day. The best ones will be from high-authority sites, often with some connecting theme - but that isn't essential - and that doesn't mean the lower-authority, unrelated sites are going to do you any harm whatsoever.

However, you wouldn't want to encourage everyone to drop an anchor text to your service in the footer of their websites, for example, because that isn't natural and will not be rewarded.

If you've got that many customers who are happy to link to you, you'd be wise to generate some great content and encourage them to engage with it - the kind of stuff they'd be keen to share, and others would be keen to read and you'll never have to concern yourself with your anchor text again.