Ranking for big kws with just 1-2 Links

[zentrader99]

I have been observing this lately (After Aug-Sep update),new sites (not auction/expired) domains with very less DA/DA (0 to 15) ranking for big keywords.

First I thought,it is about content but got enough evidence against it.

Now I got a case study of another veteran (No BS consultant type) @Grind who explains why it happens in his case study.

https://twitter.com/GrindstoneSEO/status/1087836159969914880

Easier to read version
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1087836159969914880.html

Tldr: 1 High DA and Highly niche related link beats 100s of average links

Even 1-2 Exact match anchor can kill your ranking now a days.

Purpose of this thread is to discuss this observation.

 

[harrytwatter]

Can confirm, seen something similar with a new site in decently competitive affiliate dominated health vertical ranking top 10 with a few hyper niche relevant HARO links.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I read this the other day. When you strip away a lot of the verbosity, he boiled it down to:

1. Exact Match Anchors currently hurt you.
2. High DA + High Relevancy is the jam.
3. When you lose a link, you lose all the juice.

1) I noticed the exact same thing with exact match anchors and posted about it here a few weeks ago. I tried to find it to see the context, but it's absolutely the case right now, one I suspect will be fixed at some point. It could also be the case that Google realizes the chances of that happening naturally is so low, especially on long tail keywords, that they know it's unnatural. Could also be that it causes the negative bounce for the full 90 days or whatever, because it has a high chance of being unnnatural.

2) Absolutely on the relevancy. I talk about mini-nets on-site and virtual silos extending off-site for this reason. Page-to-page relevancy is big. Domain-to-domain relevancy is even better especially if the site is juicy.

3) That's interesting to see studied. I'm fairly positive Google used to still give you ghost remnants of credit for lost links. I hope they haven't changed that.

I'm also 99% sure he's talking about 'payday loans' so that's a whole different ball game of turn over and fast ranking.

 

[jstover77]

Hmm, I still use a good amount of exact anchors and don't see them hurting at all. Quite the opposite actually. That being said, I always try to throw the exact match anchors surrounded by highly contextually relevant content, as well as relevancy at the domain level. I do keep in mind anchor ratios and make sure there is plenty of diversity, but I think there is still a place for exact match anchors.

Just my 2cents.

 

[Tucky]

The trouble with exact match anchors is that they are so unnatural. If someone is going to honestly talk about your brand in their blog they are going to name the company not link through your desired keywords. To me, it's a big sign saying 'paid link' rather than 'natural link'. And as we all know, G isn't stupid anymore.

For me, a domain url link in a paragraph of relevant content is king, at least long term.

 

[tyealia]

Very interesting case study, I wonder if it applies to non local results as well.

Anchor text is always a big subject and I think too much exact has hurt sites for some time now but I thought a little bit was helpful.
For Affiliate sites, I currently check the competitors on the first page and reconstruct their ratios.

I use a ratio of about 20%-30% money anchor (I will only use the exact keyword ex. "best potato peeler" I am targeting once, and send my best link to it, then the rest are my keyword mixed in with natural looking words like "we found the best potato peeler article here".
Then I use 20% misc i.e Click here.
20% Url,
20% Brand
20% topic. This has been working for me.

The part about when a link is removed the juice was lost is interesting, since I posted a case study from moz on here from a year ago saying the exact opposite and talking about link "Echos" maybe the algo changes removed that benefit...that would be sad.