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Overheard a podcast SEO expert say anchor text doesn't matter anymore
I was listening to a marketing podcast on my drive to work last Tuesday, and the guest (some big agency guy) claimed that Google now ignores exact match anchor text completely. It stopped me cold because I still spend time crafting those links for clients (you know, the old school way). Has anyone else caught their strategy changing based on podcast advice or conference hot takes?
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mason2838d ago
That agency guy probably makes that claim because it sounds cutting edge, but have you tested what happens when you strip all the branded anchor text from a site that ranks well right now? Back in March I swapped out half the exact match links on a client's blog posts for generic ones and watched their positions slip on long tail queries they'd owned for years. What did your own data show when you last ran a controlled experiment on anchor text?
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sarahsullivan7d ago
Oof, yeah I've been there too @mason283. I ran a similar test on an affiliate site a few months back and swapped out about 30% of the exact match links for naked URLs and watched impressions drop on those same long tail phrases within two weeks. My takeaway was that you can't just yank the branded stuff without replacing it with something just as specific or the algo gets confused about relevance. Have you tried gradually phasing them in instead of a big swap?
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