Incoming Links and Anchor Text

[MrMedia]

I am adding some decent links to my site from big brand authorities in the niche and beyond.

Question: should the anchor text linking to the page be the kw I am targeting or a semantically related version? I don't want to over optimise and end up paying for links that ultimately get us a penalty lol.

 

[stackcash]

We typically use branded and raw url anchors almost exclusively. Those two take up well over 50% of our anchor ratio.

The others are from natural links and outreach links where we allow the writer to choose the anchor. In the latter case, the site does get some target-keyword based anchors.

If I happen to purchase a service, we're letting the provider choose what gets anchored, or I provide them a large list of long-tails to use at his discretion for anchors.

The ONLY time we use our exact target keyword is when we know it's going to be on a super powerful page and will be a very beneficial link. I think we've done this about 10-15x total on a link profile with over 150 referring domains.

 

[MrMedia]

Thanks dude, makes sense.

When you say super powerful do you mean like a Forbes.com or similar?