Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Well, this is the place for 'em. Feel free to post a thread whenever you need to! Welcome to the Moz community. ^_^

(One tip: If a response answers your question, click the "Good Answer" link in the lower-right. It marks your question as "answered," and it gives the responder a few extra MozPoints. I work here, so I'm not too concerned, but it's a good thing to do.)

Hi there, Lauren!

An external link is one typeof hyperlink—specifically, a hyperlink that links from one domain to another. The opposite is an internal link, which links from one page on a domain to another page on that same domain. A link from moz.com to inbound.org is an external link because moz.com and inbound.org are different domains, but a link from moz.com/community/q to moz.com/community/q/what-is-the-difference-between-anchor-text-and-external-links is internal because they're both on the domain moz.com.

Anchor text is a component of all text links, whether they're internal or external. In a traditional hyperlink that appears on the page as a bit of underlined blue text, the anchor text is that blue text itself.

This is an internal link to moz.com/community/q. The destination URL is moz.com/community/q, and the anchor text is "This is an internal link to moz.com/community/q." It's internal because both the page we're currently on and the page the link points to are on the domain moz.com. Here's another link to moz.com/community/q: The Moz Q&A Forum. It has the same destination URL as the previous link, but the anchor text—"The Moz Q&A Forum"—is different.

Does that clear things up at all?

Hi Kevin! Did Miriam's advice help? And if so, mind marking her response(s) as a "Good Answer?"

Thank you!

Hi there! Have you had the chance to read through our Beginner's Guide to SEO? It might clarify some of these things for you.

Hi David! Did Ikkie's response do the trick?

Hi kirupa!

It's quite possible that spamming the keyword isn't what's helping them rank. Have you looked into their backlink profile?

Hi thekiller99! Did this get worked out? We'd love an update.

Hi Keith! Did Oleg's and/or Michael's response help, and if so, would you mind marking one or both as a Good Answer?

Nice new article on the subject, with input from none other than our very own Dr. Pete!

Should You Worry About Voice Search? via Entrepreneur

Hi Allie! We'd love an update on this.

Hi Todd! Are you able to let Andy know your search terms? Did you get this worked out?

Ah, got it! Your best bet is to choose the sites you compete with most. There are a lot of ways to figure that out, but one reasonably quick way is to search for your most important keywords in an incognito window, and choose 3 sites you'll need to outrank in order to pull ahead on the SERPs.

Does that make sense?

Hi Anoop! Have everyone's answers helped? Do you still have any questions?

Hi James! Did Luke's resource help? Do you still need some help?

Out of curiosity, what CMS is your site on?

As I noted in my endorsement, I'm 100% with Patrick on this. I just wanted to drive home this point—do not buy links. It can work for a bit, but you will get caught, and it will be extremely difficult to regain your rankings.

Interestingly, I'm not seeing E Appliance Repair's Yelp listing in the results for any of those keywords. Is it possible you're seeing personalized results? Have you tried searching in an incognito window?

Hi James! I'm not sure what happened, but your 2 queries are most definitely not in your question. What can we help you with?

And since I can now stop being cryptic, I was referring to the new Keyword Explorer.

Any time! ^_^