Varied Anchor Text

[doovde]

Say you are about to launch a link building campaign for the keywords poker bonus.

Would a site which only had anchor text links with the exact words poker bonus and nothing else in rank higher than another site that might have a big mixture of things like online poker bonus and poker bonus deals ect.

What do you think?

[themike537]

I like the mixture. It appears unnatural to have all your links w/the same anchor text. You can get away with it a bit more if you have an exact match domain, but I'd still throw in a bunch of variations.

[scrawnybob]

I'd agree with mike

dont want to be negative - but "poker bonus" is a big big term (really too big IMHO) - and I'd always go for 5 or 6 related 2, 3 or 4 word keyword strings rather than just only go for one again and again ... I think it would look spammy and I dont think it works long term

as Mike said it would be really unnatural - truely natural links wont put in your perfect anchor text everytime - also I would target the next tier down on bonus related keywords and try to hit them first

3 or 4 word ones with less traffic - but less competition ... ultimately they will still help you hit the related 2 word target anchor text too (others might not agree but I think it does given enough time)

just my 2p
cheers scrawnybob

[Mr-AJ]

It looks very suspicious to google when there's always the same anchor text. It may be best for this single keyword but you will risk some kind of penalty. I'd mix it up but try to focus on parts of the keywords. For example "poker bonus code" "online poker bonus" "pokerstars bonus code" and so on.

[Sebastian]

I just use this for my anchors : "I love Google [insert longtail here] "

Makes them have pity on you and prevents penalties imo.

HTH

Sebastian

PS: OK serious answer is vary your anchor texts. A typical site may have up to 20% of just the URL as anchor. Having 100% of your anchors identical could trigger a penalty because it looks really unnatural.