How to optimize your anchor text
Anchor text helps search engines understand your links. Learn how to use it strategically without over-optimization.
Topic: Anchor text
Internal linking for SEO: Types, strategies & tools
Learn how to build a powerful internal linking strategy that boosts rankings, improves crawlability, and strengthens topical authority across your site.
Types of backlinks explained: How to drive SEO, traffic, and authority
Understanding which types of backlinks are most valuable to your domain will help you develop the right content and target audiences.
Internal links and SEO: Best practices, examples and tips
Improve user experience, optimize navigation and increase engagement with an SEO-friendly internal linking structure.
Internal linking for bloggers: 9 mistakes to fix immediately
Correct internal linking is one of the most powerful SEO strategies available. Here’s what to fix on your site today.
Internal link building for an E-E-A-T-focused content strategy
Maximize your website's E-E-A-T signals through strategic internal linking within a well-structured pillar-cluster content model.
Google publishes new link best practices
This help document went from basics on crawlable links to a much more robust link best practices.
3 tactics to improve CTAs for increased relevance and conversions
CTAs shouldn’t be an afterthought. Including them in your on-page optimizations can help strengthen your user journey and signal relevance to search engines.
Pro Tip: Table of contents can provide additional link options in organic search
By implementing anchor jumps that match a page element with the same ID, you may be able to gain some benefits in search and user experience.
Chapter 6: Link building & ranking in search engines
Here we get into the link building elements of the Periodic Table of SEO Factors. Links were the first major “off-page” ranking factor used by search engines. Google wasn’t the first search engine to count links as “votes,” but it was the first search engine to rely heavily on link analysis as a way to […]
4 reports you can pull from Ahrefs that you didn’t know existed
Columnist Kevin Rowe points out some handy reports available in Ahrefs for helping to inform your link building, SEO and content strategy. Why not check them out?
Online Advertising Glossary
Welcome to our Online Advertising Glossary. Use it to cut through the jargon (and keep ahead of the competition).
Google’s Matt Cutts: One Page With Two Links To Same Page; We Counted The First Link
Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts posted a video today answering how does Google handle one page that has two links pointing to the same page. Does it pass PageRank the same way? How does Google handle the anchor text, if the anchor text differs. In short, Mat Cutts said: (1) PageRank flows to each […]
How SEO Greed Can Ruin A Perfectly Good Linking Strategy
By now, you are likely aware of the Rap Genius “Tweet In Exchange For Anchor Text” link scheme, hencefore to be known as TieFating. Barry Schwartz reported last week on John Marbach’s exposé of the popular music site, Rap Genius, which had started an “affiliate” program in order to get links pointing to their website. After it was exposed, […]
Google: Links In Press Releases Should Use Nofollow Like Paid Links
Friday we broke the news that Google updated their link schemes webmaster guidelines. Now that the dust has settled, I aimed at getting more clarification on what Google meant by the new example around keyword-rich anchor text links within articles or press releases. The specific line in the link schemes document is: Links with optimized […]
Google Warns Against Large-Scale Guest Posting, Advertorials & “Optimized Anchor Text” In Press Releases
Google has quietly updated the link schemes document under their Webmaster guidelines to add large-scale guest posting, advertorials and optimized anchor text in articles or press releases to the list of types of links that violate their guidelines. The new guideline examples that were added to this document include: Large-scale article marketing or guest posting […]
More Proof Google Counts Press Release Links, Using Matt Cutts’s Own Blog
About six months ago, Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, made a comment in a Google forum thread that links within press releases won’t “benefit your rankings.” Since then, we showed one case where Google not only discovers the links within typical press releases but uses the anchor text for ranking purposes. Maybe it […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 7, 2013
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Facebook Updates Newsfeed, No Impact On Graph Search (Today) We’ve covered this morning’s changes and enhancements to Facebook Newsfeed over at Marketing Land: Facebook Newsfeed Evolving Into “The Best Personalized Newspaper” […]
Google’s March Updates: Anchor Text, Image Search, Navigational Search & More
Google’s latest round of search quality updates is now available, and — at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old SEO — this month’s seems even more difficult to grasp than normal. There are a lot of words in this month’s list of 50 changes, but it appears to me that there’s not really […]
Link Building Fundamentals
Link Building Fundamentals [flv:https://searchengineland.com/video_assets/bootcamp/link-building.flv 364 264] Ever since Google created PageRank more than a decade ago, every good search marketer’s motto has been “I link, therefore I am.” In fact, links are cited as four of the top five factors in a recent Search Engine Ranking Factors survey. They’re important! Though linking seems easy, it’s […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 30, 2012
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Yandex Joins Bing, Yahoo In Using Nokia-Navteq Map Data Russian search giant Yandex announced that it will be licensing data from Nokia-owned Navteq to offer better and more comprehensive maps coverage […]
Link Building Tool Review: SEOmoz PRO
Second in our review series are the link building tools from SEOmoz Pro; I was excited to review this tool set since it’s not one I use. Let’s start with a quick overview of what’s in the program and then focus on the link building tools. SEOmoz PRO SEOmoz PRO is a set of “software, tools and resources to maximize […]
Linking Oddities That Ripley Would Like
Ahhh, the strangeness that is links. This week’s column will hopefully spark some questions, answer a few others, and also point out some weird linking related phenomena, beginning with two examples: If this search is correct, Google indexes a little over (Use Dr. Evil voice) 1 billion pages from the Yahoo.com family of domains. But, […]
Link Building Tool Review: Link Research Tool Set By CEMPER
Beginning today, my Link Week column will be devoted to link building tool reviews. Each review will focus on how the tool works and provide tips on how you can use the results to build links. If you’re on the fence about buying a tool, hopefully my reviews will help with your decision making process. The […]
A Campaign Prep Checklist For Link Builders
This is the fourth and final installment of our Link Building Blueprint series, as a refresher here are the first three posts: Part 1 – A Link Building Blueprint: The Foundation Part 2 – Utility Linking Part 3 – Proven Ways to Use Content to Attract Links Our blueprint has, up to this point, outlined […]
Taking A Closer Look At Link Changes
When you’re trying to build as natural a backlink profile as possible, you need to carefully think about all the things that could make it look strange. If your typical link growth each month over the past 12 months has been 5 links, getting 100 will seem odd. Suddenly focusing on an incredibly bizarre long-tailed […]
Bing Webmaster Tools Launches New Link Reports; Google Webmaster Tools Changes Theirs
Bing Webmaster Tools has relaunched inbound link reports for verified site owners (as announced at SMX East back in October). I dove in to check out what the new reports include. Google has recently revamped their inbound link reports, so I made note of those changes well. Read on for more details. Want a quick summary? […]
Keywords, Text Links & Navigation Design
What is the best approach to utilizing keywords in site navigation? Balance is the key to successful keyword placement in a search-engine friendly website.
Link Building Basics At SMX East
Greetings from the Big Apple! I’m here this week attending SMX East, soaking up lots of SEO/SEM news, meeting new people and catching up with some of this industry’s best and brightest. There are two link building sessions being offered, Link Building Basics and Show Me the Links. The material in the second session will be […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 21, 2010
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Maps Aggregates Midterm Election Forecasts Google has joined forces with a handful of political web sites to track forecasts for the upcoming U.S. mid-term elections. Those forecasts are available now […]
Smart Links Can Make Your SEO Sing
Webmasters build links for two reasons: to drive traffic and to influence search engine placement. Neither option is as cut and dry as I’ve stated here but when it gets down to it, that’s why webmasters deliberately build links. If you’re building links to support ongoing SEO efforts, there are a handful of key tips to […]
Connecting For Links: Recruiting Link Building Partners In-House
What is the hardest task in search engine optimization? Whether the question is asked in a formal poll, on an online forum or over a cup of coffee, the answer most commonly given is “link building.” With good reason: an external link, by definition, is something outside an SEOs immediate realm of control. External link […]
Link Building: Not Just Off-Page Anymore
Link building tends to be viewed as on off-page activity – you’re not messing with title tags or site architecture and you don’t actually have to touch the site itself or write new content. However, if all you are doing is building more inbound links to your site without doing any analysis of on-page factors, […]
Search Ranking Factors Shows How Little SEO Has Changed
72 search engine optimizers from around the world have contributed to SEOmoz’s latest Search Engine Ranking Factors report, a study that offers valuable insight into how SEO works in 2009 … but also shows how little it’s changed in recent years. (Disclaimer: I’m one of the 72 contributors.) You can read the survey here, and […]
Are You Helping Facebook Outrank You For Your Brand Name?
Facebook allows you to embed fan pages on your own site, which might result in Facebook outranking you for your own brand name. For example, the Search Engine Land fan page has a link for me to “add a fan box to your site.” If you look at the code of that widget, you might […]
Using Competitors To Build Links
Doing business on the Web isn’t easy, and you need every advantage to grab attention from the masses clicking by. In order to succeed, companies need to understand how to manage the marketing information they find. This information can be used to help strategic planning, monitor competitors and provide early warning signs for new opportunities […]
Powerful Linkbait: Contests & Incentives
Most people in the industry look at contests and incentives as branding and marketing tools. However if you are willing to get creative, you can turn a contest into a powerful link building tool that will, over time, help your organic rankings. When most marketing and advertising teams look at a contest they are looking […]
Google’s Matt Cutts Talks About Redirected Links & Nofollowed Links
Matt Cutts of Google has posted two short videos on the topic of links. One video answers how Google handles links that are 301 redirected and the other video answers how Google handles nofollowed links from authority sources. Here is Matt’s video on 301 redirects where the question asked is does anchor text carry through […]
You’re Up A Link Creek Without An Anchor
Hey everyone, Happy New Year! I wanted to start the year off talking about one of the most important components of link popularity – anchor text. As far as I’m concerned, getting an anchor text link on an authority site ranks right up there with hitting the Powerball or finding out you’re having a baby. […]
When You Turn A Link On, Does It Return The Favor?
Last week during SMX East, the Link Building Boot Camp was a 75-minute overview of everything you ever wanted to know about link building and then some. This session was offered to anyone who wanted to learn the basics, get a solid understanding of links and prepare for the rest of the linking panels throughout the week. […]