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ok, I accept the points raised above and understand where you are coming from. The difficulty I am having is that I want to outsrouce link building/content reach (and yes, in white hat manner), but everyone I speak to seems to have a 'network' of sites they can build links from which really worries me as I'm sure google will spot a pattern. How do I outsource without having this issue?

Nope - I would always defer to what is better for the user. Remember that whilst there are many components of the algorithm that analyse the page there are also parts that look at engagement - if the changes have a positive impact on engagement and UX as suspected then I would not fear some algorithmic punishment. Always, always test. Roll it out. Decide on your metrics and test the results by those measurements of what success looks like. If it has a negative impact on ranking or engagement then reconsider - you can always roll back. It's very easy to get into analysis paralysis when worrying about the search ranking algorithm - do what is right by your users first and you won't go far wrong. Hope that helps Marcus

Hi nick-name123! If Tymen has answered your question, mind marking his response as a "Good Answer" (in the lower right corner of the response)? It helps us keep track of things, and it'll give him a few bonus MozPoints.

Hi, I have to agree with the previous responses. Anchor text is important because it gives web site visitors (and search engines) a hint about the web page or web site they are about to visit (if they click the link). This is why you DON’T want to use common calls to action like, “click here” or “our website.” Instead, you want to use keyword rich anchor text. But you don't want it to become very spammy sounding—so keep this in mind when creating content. Anchor text helps search engines understand what the page is about and it also helps establish site architecture. And depending on the anchor text of the link, it might even increase your rankings for certain keywords! As an example, if you’re having a contest to give away a free website makeover for the HVAC industry, make free HVAC website the anchor text! If thousands of web sites link to your site using the anchor text ‘leading residential furnace installers‘ there’s a good chance that you’re in the residential HVAC business and you install furnaces! I hope this helped! But if you're looking for more information check out our blog that discusses if you need links to rank on Google.

Hello Nick, It sounds like you're talking about category pages that link to product pages. I do recommend putting unique content on category pages, as they target different phases of a buying cycle (and keywords). For example... "Blue Widgets" is a top-level category search. "Blue Widgets for Men" is a category search. "Men's V9 Blue Widget" (not the singular use of widget) is most likely a product search. All three pages types should have their own unique content using keywords specific to that stage of the buying cycle, and displaying content that is useful to that stage of the buying cycle. For example... "Blue Widgets" ---> Explain how to choose a blue widget. Which sub-category should they check out? Help them decide where to go next. Help them narrow their search. "Men's Blue Widgets" ---> Explain the difference between brands and perhaps leading models. What are their needs and budget? Which are the high-end, top-of-the-line men's blue widgets, and which are affordable and reliable options, or entry-level widgets? Educate them. "Men's V9 Blue Widget" ---> Explain the product. What are the features that either set it apart or make it a good value for the money? The linking strategy can work this way as well. Naturally you're going to be passing pagerank from category pages into sub-categories and into products. This happens naturally on most sites because that is the natural flow of a purchasing path and a logical taxonomy. However you should also be passing pagerank back up if you want to help category pages rank. Enhanced produce descriptions give you an opportunity to do this. Good luck!

You're throwing out the baby with the bathwater (to use a colloquialism). External pointing, followed links are not only good for the web as a whole, they're good for YOUR site, too. We've seen numerous examples of sites that began opening their external linking policies and received greater search traffic and rankings as a result. The most famous of these in the NYTimes, which Marshall Simmonds talked about in his Whiteboard Friday here: http://moz.com/blog/convincing-upper-management-aka-justifying-your-existence-whiteboard-friday I'd also suggest watching Cyrus' video on the topic of linking externally here: http://moz.com/blog/external-linking-good-for-seo-whiteboard-friday And finally, I'd point out that sites that never link out with followed links create the perception that they are not generous and thus, not deserving, of links of their own. You might point out that only a fraction of web users know what a nofollow link is, and my response would be that those are the same people who control most of the websites and links. All in all, I'd strongly advise against this (and Google does, too!).

On the subject of articles and pages that list headings of articles.. any idea on minimum text needed before something is regarded as 'thin content'? I have a site with pages like that and was producing to thirty to forty pages per week (news items).  I had thousands of those pages and would delete old ones about once a year.  That site got hit in one of the first Pandas.  I noindexed those pages right away and the site recovered within a few weeks.    Now I continue doing the same.  The anchor text is two to six words that are perfectly descriptive of the content or something snarky.  Since the pages  are not indexed I don't think that they are a problem. I have had some slight panda problems that I think was caused by some pages that I added to a site almost ten years ago.  It was a lot of photos with two to three sentence descriptions.  So, I noindexed them and will beef all of them up to  a couple hundred words and the really good ones up to 1000 word articles with several photos.  But, I think that a couple hundred words would be adequate - but nobody knows for sure.

Thanks William. We found screaming frog recently. Why nobody ever told us about it before is amazing.