I’ve just read the following tweet from Chris
When I see people moaning within the SEO community I always like to have a look and see what it’s about. I need the drama in my life, without which I’d be nothing.
Now the link provided is pointing to a wonderfully titled article – Finally: An Easy-to-Understand Link Building Plan to Help You Recover from Penguin and Panda (I’m glad it’s now really easy…) Whilst reading said post I noticed something about keyword anchor text.
Targeted keywords – Never waste anchor text on non-descriptive links like “read more” or “view video.” And avoid sending them to your home page, too. Make your anchor text work by using targeted keywords to get the best SEO value.
O.k, I mean it’s every SEO’s decision to decide on how they do things. Different experiences, sectors, whatever. But why then a few paragraphs later do I read…
Non-descriptive links – Finally, don’t forget to use anchor text that has zero keyword value. I’m talking about links like “Read More” or “Download this free book.” But if you are creating good content you won’t have to worry about “non-descriptive links” as you will naturally get them.
Come on man! Which one is it!?
Is this a case of someone getting so bored of writing the same old stuff that they have forgotten what side they lie on?
Panda & Penguin Hyperlol,
DUH you need both in some random proportion!
Never waste anchor text on non-descriptive links like “read more”
Finally, don’t forget to use anchor text that has zero keyword value. I’m talking about links like “Read More”
*guffaw*
Maybe he is doing us all a favor by subliminally influencing us to “read more” and turn off the television? That’s all I can come up with.
I’m sure I’ll click through again. I’m a fool for those article titles…
I also like how he cited the terrible Branded3 study on Tweets v Rankings as fact & not some loosely based correlation study for what it was.
Also Pinterest links are going to save me from Panda’s & Penguin’s -really?
Pinterest is the future of search 🙂 I’ve seen people disagree with their own views in separate posts but rarely seen one like this.
Wait – wasn’t the main issue with Penguin-hit sites crappy links with aggressive anchors?
And you’re telling them to recover by going after keyword-heavy anchors?
This. This is ridiculous. Love Neil, I really do, but giving this advice is just bad.
Exactly what I thought Jon.
Agree, I love a lot of Neil’s stuff and he’s happy to help but I was really disappointed with this one 🙁
The thing I love about the SEO community is that best practice is always being discussed and negotiated fairly openly. This is the other side of the coin really, you’re going to get some dud advice every now and then… yet, this mistake is a very confusing one.
Agreed, no-one’s perfect. However there are some people within the industry who should be more careful about the advise that they give than others.
I think that’s the most important part Sean – people will hang off Neil’s every word simply because he’s said it. When his own post is giving contradictory advice to itself you have to wonder how much thought has gone into it, and how valuable the rest of the advice might be. Or, in fact, if he’s even written the post himself?
He’s not the only one that writes contradictory stuff but it’s just frustrating to see.
I’ve seen a few people say that some of his content is written by someone else. I can imagine that if you are mainly targeting the basic/beginners online marketing crowd you can get anyone to write for you 🙂
Neal Neal orange peel whats the deal ?
driving about in your seo mobile
I think its nice
that you give advice
but dont contradict yourself or be more specific , anything but anchor txt is a waste in a press release? Keep it simple stupid 🙂
But it has over 200 Tweets so it has to be the bestest post eva, right?
Or maybe those are just all Triberr Tweets eh? Yay for sheep-like back-scratching.
The thing is people RT (myself included) content that they haven’t even read. Oh well.
Mike Essex placed a bolded sentence in one of his articles, asking people to tweet in a particular manner if they ‘read that far.’ Guess how many people I noticed didn’t tweet as asked though commented in tweets on how they liked it?
Haha, I actually read that far but didn’t tweet about it. What do I win?
How many didn’t read that far?
It’s an SEO prerogative… to warp your mind
I thought as much. Unfortunately it worked 🙁
Wow!!! Just wow!
I’m not 100% sure what this means but thanks? 😀