The Power of Anchor Text
I was reading today about how the Church of Scientology has been “Google-bombed” for the words “dangerous cult” and “brainwashing cult”.
This is really a neat way to look at how anchor text works, because in an effort to get the Scientology website to rank first on Google for those terms, you have to use anchor text. What do I mean?
<a href="http://www.scientology.org">dangerous cult</a>
It’s just that simple. If you take enough back links with that anchor text, you could rank any site for just about anything. Now, while I don’t condone the actions of anyone trying to do this, it does make you think about the power of the anchor text in your links.
This is why if you are linking to someone else’s site, you should always try to use the title of their article, or the title of their site. It gives that much more power to the anchor text you are using.
So, instead of typing “click here”, you really should use the proper anchor text to show the relevance of what you are linking to. I wrote an article entitled “Click here for SEO benefits” on my other site, stop by and give it a read so I don’t have to repeat it here. (see how easy it was to anchor that text?)
If you would like to read more about this, head over to the WebProNews article.
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Technorati Tags: anchor text, backlinks, google bomb, seo
The Power of Anchor Text | Blog Explosion dot NET…
The power of anchor text and back links has been shown. Not necessarily in a good way if you are the Church of Scientology. A Google bomb attack using anchored text for the terms "dangerous cult" and "brainwashing cult" …
It’s really hard to convince people to stop typing ‘click here’ or making the link ‘this article’. I used to be pretty good at linking poorly myself.
Tim’s last blog post..Cow Lake Oval Ice Race, Rocky Mountain House
Man, this is a great point. I also was great at linking poorly (and still not perfect) but it does make a huge difference. Thanks for the reminder!!
-Thom
jtrigsby.com’s last blog post..BloggingZoom Attacked…Again
Yep, I have a lot of backlinks that have “click here” or just “here” as the anchor text. Tim, was that you?
Why, yes, it was
Click here to visit me 
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It just goes to show that not a lot has changed in SEO since I created my first website over 3 years. Brad Callen was talking about the same things. A lot of people look for new stuff and sometimes forget about the basics.
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Thanks for the handy tips. So much to know about SEO..
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