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A WebmasterWorld thread has a new conversation on an old topic. The topic is to link to your home page, off your home page, using keyword rich anchor text that you want to rank for. The example given by one member is:
So I put up a paragraph on the homepage talking about say 'red widgets in oklahoma'. Then I link those words (red widgets in oklahoma) right back to the homepage. In other words, my homepage links to itself, with some nice juicy text.And guess what? Despite no other backlinks with text to do with oklahoma, my site ranks #1 or 2 for red widgets in oklahoma.
I actually see this fairly often on the web. Clearly done for SEO purposes. I am surprised it works so well. Of course, the topic of the first anchor text counting or not. But Matt Cutts of Google published a video just the other day on this topic, watch it below:
Anyway, the SEO discussion is interesting.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Michael Martinez
02/04/2010 06:15 pm
Why shouldn't internal links help with optimization? Most sites are going to be more honest about their own content than about other sites' content anyway. If you're going to allow links to pass anchor text, you should definitely allow internal anchor text to work. It requires the least amount of vetting.
Rich
02/05/2010 09:46 am
Internal linkns should and do help with opimitisation, anything that establishes relevance is going to help you, but it's not going to get you a high ranking if you're up against serious competition who have good quality relevant IBLs from authoritative sites, it's just not enough.
Bill Kruse
02/05/2010 10:15 am
It's cheesy but cheesy will work very well in the absence of any serious competition. BB
Bill Kruse
02/05/2010 10:18 am
OK I just watched Matt's video. I think these are aimed at novice level webmasters so Matt keeps it simple. Overly simple. I frankly disbelieve what he says. I think he has to tailor his description of the reality to what might be grasped by the novice. It limits him. Just my thoughts. BB
Chris Hornak
02/05/2010 03:17 pm
Did you consider if you'd rank for that without the internal link? If you're the only site that has that phrase on it, you could still rank with or without the link.
Nick Stamoulis
02/05/2010 06:06 pm
This is a great (and old) topic, but I still think that it is important to add the anchor text link from other pages of your website, unless it hurts the user experience. For instance, you may want to have the "Home" text in your main navigation but in the bottom footer, it may make sense to add in the anchor text. Again, my thought is if it confuses your site visitors then the internal link building aspects are not worth it.