SEO Case Study: Link Building – natural anchor text – PR0 vs. PR4 strength

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 | seo knowhow

Do you want 20 PageRank 0 links or 20 PageRank 4 links? The following contribution will help you to answer this question. Today’s topic is a case study on one of our big clients from the real estate market. It is about the variation of anchor texts, natural anchor texts and the value of PageRank 0 links. It makes clear that PageRank 0 links could be more potent than PageRank 4 links. Due to this we assume, that PageRank cannot be used to evaluate the quality of the links.

There is already an article about PageRank Myths in Linkbuilding where we differentiate between the “Toolbar PageRank” (the one we see and we write in this article about) and the internal parameter which Google uses. This internally used parameter is sometimes called PageRank but is not visible outside the system.

Case Study for real estate company

Case Study for real estate company

Even Trusted Domains don’t get away with everything

The following case study is about a long term client from the real estate market in Germany. This specific client is in Germany very big and has a ten year old domain with over 100.000 links to it. The Backlinks were organically developed over the last 10 years and they are doing really good. Last year we started a new project for a niche topic on their site related to their business.

Should be no problem,or?

10 Killer links lead to a Penalty?

A Penalty for 10 links?

A Penalty because of 10 Killerlinks to a Sub-page?

We started the project with 10 links a month.  In order to kick-start it very softly we developed persona links. Those were 10 links from relevant pages, in-content links and all of them showing PageRank 0. All backlinks were follow, which bequests PageRank and counts for Google.

These few links should be okay – or?

How you can bring down a page with 10 Killerlinks

+ 30 Penalty

+ 30 Penalty

We noticed after 2 months, which was 20 links, we tripped the automatic filter for that keyword for that single page. The client explicitly wanted us to link with one generic keyword to the specific page. We did it because we thought due to the fact that 10 links are few, this should be no problem (after this experience we dissuade from doing so).  Before we started the project the page already ranked in Google thanks to the trust of the domain. After the 2 months we hit a +30 filter for that certain keyword and for that page. It got a penalty of plus 30 in the search results of Google, although the links were PageRank 0 – why? The links were relevant but the problem was the anchor text.

How we solved the problem for the client

We took a closer look at the 20 links which were PageRank 0 but juicy, our Linkjuice tool identified them as juicy. They were counted by Google and tripped and automatic filter for that keyword. It was definitely over optimization. The solution for this problem was to:

  • vary with the anchor texts
  • change the anchor texts to natural language phrases
  • e.g. link the brand name
  • e.g. link phrases like “this page”
  • even place nofollow links

Links with nofollow tags

Nofollow links are natural

Yes, nofollow links are good because they are natural! The normal Internet User does not know the difference between follow and nofollow links. In order to see NOFOLLOW links a specific plug-in for the browser is needed and only SEOs have installed it. The probability that a page only gets FOLLOW links, with the same anchor text, on top of that with such an expensive keyword, equals zero. Nevertheless if this happens it is not natural.

If you take a look at the distribution between follow and nofollow forums in the web you can see that half of them have NOFOLLOW activated. In order to blur the tracks we placed NOFOLLOW links and varied with the anchor texts. What happened was that after 60 days the penalty or actually the automatic filter was lifted. The page went back to the search page number one in Google. It was even better than the day before it tripped the filter because it went up one position. The lesson learned is that Google obviously counts those PageRank 0 links if they are relevant, if they are in-content and if they are on relevant pages, which we find with our Serp Research tool regardless of the PageRank.

Do you really need high page rank links?

Do you really need this?

We did other tests and took 20 PageRank 4 links and gained nothing. It had neither a positive nor a negative effect. It was just a waist of time and money. If you think about it makes sense because PageRank 0 Backlinks came from relevant pages, they were developed over time and they looked natural and the other links did not, although they show PageRank. We recommend to vary your anchor text and don’t be greedy about PageRank because simply PageRank doesn’t matter anymore in link building. It is not an indicator for the quality of a link because it doesn’t say anything about topical relevance and if the link is counted.

Now you know that varying with the anchor texts is very important and besides this you know that PageRank is not an indicator for placing a link there. Of course this topic could be scientifically evaluted further but this is not our aspiration. All we want is to share our experience with you and to care for our clients.

We are aware of that some agencies, SEOs and “experts” assign essentially more value to the Google PageRank. We simply cannot agree to that and warn of a unilateral use of the Google Pagerank.

20 Comments to SEO Case Study: Link Building – natural anchor text – PR0 vs. PR4 strength

syn
August 4, 2009

well most filters are lifted within 60 days. i think the issue was, that there seems to be only 10 links a month, if the links would have been spread more (with some “natural” variation) there would not have been a penality. make these 10 links, make them (and their anchor text count) but then spread juice links all over the place.

admin
August 4, 2009

@syn: these 10 links / month were part of a much bigger link growth of over 130 new links per month, but all those other links went to other pages, had other anchortexts etc

hence I believe that indeed THESE 10 links caused the penalty (on that one page!)

SEO Company UK
August 8, 2009

ok what i want to know is PR is tht really matters i have seen sites ranks in 1st page in google without even a PR 1.

Travel Affiliate
August 10, 2009

Thanks for sharing.
Maybe Google have this trigger in place because they want to bust the typical link exchanges where the link page contains specific html code containing the same anchor text for webmasters to use for the reciprocal. Maybe ?

Light Rucksacks
August 14, 2009

Some interesting points raised here. I wasn’t aware that filters are lifted after 60 days, I thought they were permanent?

wordpress review plugin
August 19, 2009

That is indeed a very interesting case study, what I doubt is that the persona (relevant and juicy links) that you got for the client were these paid links ? it is a possibility that Google thought these links to be paid and discounted them and you guys got hit with a penalty

Gia xay dung
September 21, 2009

And the end of content : anchortext in nofollow link is need to ranking with google ?.

Hardest Game Ever
September 21, 2009

This is so true. Pr doesn’t matter, and it never did. People should stop wasting their time looking for high PR pages. Natural link building is the way to go.

My advice is to find keyword phrase for every page on your website, and get the links with anchor text containing that phrase. Use 60% exact match, 30% phrase match, and 10% broad match.

Thanks

Paul @ Hybride Auto's
September 21, 2009

It’s interesting because this algo can be abused by competitors. Create 100 links with identical keyphrases and point them to your competitor. That’s scary…..

SEO-Doctor
September 25, 2009

@Paul – this is why this theory/case study needs more testing. If point 100/1000 crap links at a competitor like that, they will just be ignored.

admin
October 1, 2009

@Seo-Doctor: absolutely NOT! In our case study we had 10 links to a 10 year old domain with 100,000 links! Of course it depends on a lot of other variables like on site topic/page topic…

@paul: YES, abuse to “google bowl” and harm a competitor is a very common practice in 2009 … we plan to provide more statistical data on that soon

@Hardest Game Ever: it’s not 60/30/10 – numbers vary for every industry, niche, even sub-page

best,christoph

Travel Holiday Links
October 16, 2009

Google says that competitor can not harm your ranking: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=34449

But it is oposit with your theory of vary anchor text and -50 penalty.
??????????????

Christoph C. Cemper
November 3, 2009

@Travel – well, you shouldn’t believe Google knows everything and tells everything

“There’s almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. “

Almost nothing doesn’t mean “can not”

Plus there are some ways not discussed here that are even worse.

lice-nse to kill
November 11, 2009

Great info. I actually printed out this whole page. I have always thought varying up the anchor text is a great thing to do, and was afraid to only put 1 main keyword for my homepage and now I know i was right all along. thanks!
Scott

SEO Scotland
November 24, 2009

Most clients want (Google) pagerank, rather than page authority and this is difficult to explain unless you have a case study, perhaps the trick is to aim for both; pagerank and page authority?
Obtain the ‘natural’ links from pagerank 0 site which have authority and target the pagerank the client wants too.
More work for you, but this way you can prove the technique works.
Cheers Chris

Ryan
November 24, 2009

This case study is bogus! If this were true then you could just do this to your competition. Please… you honesty think 10 links with the same anchor text would get your site filtered? Another thing that doesn’t matter is relevancy! I have tested this many times and it doesn’t matter. The anchor text is what will boost your site in the serps. Keep linking with “click here” and I will keep dominating the serps with my sites.

Christoph C. Cemper
December 18, 2009

Hi @all – do you want to suggest/vote on the next SEO Q&A topic?

just go here:

http://feedback.cemper.com/pages/36478-cemper-com-seo-q-a-topics

pictures of head lice
December 29, 2009

I always thought the QUALITY was far more important than quality of links. Thats why some sites only have 10 links but are top of the game in Google, not for competitive keywords though, mind you. But it needs to be RELEVANT to your site, helps anyway, and if not relevant, on a page w/ decent PR and do follow of course is better…
Thanks for the info!
Mike

tim
January 4, 2010

I think that good (long tail) keyword and backlinks do the trick
I mix them up so i get no follow and do follow to get it more natural.

@Ryan: absolutely right on the anchor text

Optimization Specialist
January 6, 2010

Thanks for the great Case Study about the value of pr0 vs pr4 domains and the importance of using natural anchor text for link building.

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