Changing Anchor Text May Raise A Red Flag

Jul 29, 2013 - 8:38 am 21 by
Filed Under Link Building

red flagA WebmasterWorld thread has a webmaster asking if changing the anchor text he has been using for links to his site to something "more natural" would lead to a confirmation that he has been up to some bad link building.

In short, does Google have algorithms to detect anchor text changes and if so, do those algorithms detect these sorts of changes and raise a red flag on sites doing it.

For example, that old old big blue pineapple chair topic and you decide that you want to link to the domain name pinechair.com as PineChair, as opposed to the anchor text you've been using for years of [big blue pineapple chair].

From:

big blue pineapple chair

To:

PineChair.com

Now, you go through as many of the old back links as possible and update them from the old to the new anchor text.

Will that action set you deeper into a link penalty or help improve things? Or are we looking to deeply into the topic?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: November 19, 2025

Nov 19, 2025 - 10:00 am
Search News

Semrush To Be Acquired By Adobe

Nov 19, 2025 - 8:30 am
Google

Google AI Mode Now Powered By The New Gemini 3

Nov 19, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Tests Share Icon On Ads

Nov 19, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google Ads

Google Email: Incentivized Reviews Require Proper Identification

Nov 19, 2025 - 7:31 am
Bing Ads

Microsoft Advertising Adds Asset-Level Editorial Review & Conversion Delay

Nov 19, 2025 - 7:21 am
 
Previous Story: Google AdSense Favicons Resulting In Higher CTR For Now