If their algorithm determines that your backlinks are untrustworthy and unnatural looking, you might be looking at an over optimisation penalty – and your site will never see the light of day.
What are considered unnatural and untrustworthy links?
In the case of the Penguin update an unnatural backlink profile would contain a high disproportionate amount of links with exact match anchor text pointing to your site.
For instance, if you were after the keyword phrase ‘red widgets’ and around 75% of your links had exactly that same phrase, you could be under some scrutiny by Google’s algorithm. This coupled with links from disreputable sites containing the exact anchor text and you have real cause for concern.
Untrustworthy or low-quality links have many factors, these can be links from:
- Sites unrelated to your niche
- Low-quality articles/blog posts
- Comment spam on blogs
If you have exact match anchor text over-and-over again on the above you can expect to suffer.
So what links should I look out for?
Quality comes with links from authority sites in your niche, whether you comment on their blog, post on a forum, write a guest post, or list in a directory.
Build quality content that people want to link to – natural links are gold dust. Ensure you optimise these resources to be contextually relevant to the page you wish to rank well.
And what anchor text should I choose?
If you can choose your own text – it’s simple – just mix it up.
Look at different variations of constructing the keyword phrases you aim for. For example:
- Use singular and plural variances
- Make it actionable
- Include your brand name every so often. Branding is becoming more and more important in solidifying trustworthiness.
- If you are allowed to have a link within a description, then insert it contextually as part of a sentence.
It is also important, if possible, to link to your most important inside pages with the relevant label.
What if you have been penalised?
The solution to this is to locate and amend offending links through either updating the anchor text or removing the links altogether whilst at the same time building fresh quality links.
Summary
The key phrase to watch out for when building links is ‘over optimisation‘. Having natural looking links is key to the success of your SEO campaign. Variance in your anchor text is all well and good, but other factors, such as what page you are linking to and the quality of the site you are linking from, are equally as important.