Google March Updates – Anchor Text Changes
I dont normally take any notice of the google blog updates it normally tells us of issues once we have already started experiencing them and lots of blather..
However these 2 things made me think, wonder, peruse and generally guess on what the hell they actually mean..
Tweaks to handling of anchor text. [launch codename "PC"] This month we turned off a classifier related to anchor text (the visible text appearing in links). Our experimental data suggested that other methods of anchor processing had greater success, so turning off this component made our scoring cleaner and more robust.
Better interpretation and use of anchor text. We’ve improved systems we use to interpret and use anchor text, and determine how relevant a given anchor might be for a given query and website.
The first mentions a specific classifier (i.e., signal) that’s been turned off; the second mentions a new way (signals?) for determining anchor text relevance, my gut tells me this stuff matters I just can’t fully form how.
I know what I think but am not sure..what is your take on these two changes?
Hi Paul. I think you highlight 2 important points from Google post. My thought is that it will lead to more penalties for over optimization for anchor text head terms, which seems to be occurring with more frequency of late.
You may be right Jason
This is why people should be building links with just the url in and vary the anchor text a bit
Gut feeling is that they are starting to discount non relative links, i.e an anchor text link saying Cure acne in a blog about cars .. Just my gut feeling but I did have a curry last night and my gut is feeling weird!
I have the feeling this is more important than it seems , you may be right about the relativity of links coming into play.
Honestly, I wish I had any idea what any changes meant. All I know is that sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down. Although I’ve been down a lot more than up recently.
Pretty sure it has something to do with their penalization of over optimization, like Jason said. The question is, if you’re categorized as over optimized… how do you fix it?
Hi Erik
If you are over optimized you need to deoptimize..how and how much is of course the real question.
What areas can you look at..
-keyword density
-internal linking
-external link profile
-too many h1, h2 h3
In some weird way I wonder if “no on page seo” will become the new “on page seo”..i have some theories and ideas on this..
Please tell us more.
Wouldn’t it be nice to just be able to write without thinking about all that stuff? However, there are some articles I write that I find I use the keyword or a variation a lot. Guess I’m over optimizing then.