Do the back-links go wasted when anchor text or context content doesn't match with page content?

[vtmoz]

Hi Community,

I have seen number of back-links where the content in that link is not matching with page content. Like page A linking to page B, but content is not really relevant beside brand name. Like page with "vertigo tiles" linked to page about "vertigo paints" where "vertigo" is brand name. Will these kind of back-links completely get wasted?

I have also found some broken links which I'm planning to redirect to existing pages just to reclaim the back-links even though the content relevancy is not much beside brand name. Are these back-links are beneficial or not?

Thanks

[paupastorlopez]

Hi vtmoz

In my opinion, anchor text is not so important in these days, brand / domain / image / visit our website are good anchors. What it's really important is to have some of the links with the exact or similar anchor of the keywords you want to rank, and the rest of natural anchors.

About the page content or context content, the more related it is to the linked page, better. If the content relation is very low, it could still be a good link depending on the reputation of the linking website. The more reputation the linking site has, you need less content relation from it to be a "good" link.

Obviously, the link will be better where it has more content relation and the linking site has more reputation.

About the broken links you are planning to redirect, I would have to see the links, but unless they are backlinks from spammy sites, they should not harm your SEO. Maybe they just have little positive impact, but you don't have nothing to lose doing this.

Hope that helps, best wishes!

[Chris.Menke]

Hi VT,

Keep in mind that when page A is linking page B (either internally or externally) it is the first link to page B that shows up in the html of Page A that lends any link juice to page B. The rest don't count for anything as far as SEO.  Often that link is in the menu or breadcrumbs, rather than in the page copy. That said, while it's nice to keep the anchor text to internal resources tight, the ultimate impact of that anchor text on internal resources isn't that great.