The Link Landscape
Anyone who’s heard Dave speaking over the last year or so (and believe me I get my fill every single day!) will have heard him mention the ‘link landscape.’ It’s an interesting concept that might be familiar to you under different names such as ‘backlink profile’ but I just thought I’d share with you how we here at Bronco go about one branch of our research.
Now don’t think this is one of our entirely out-there kind of ideas; after all, most SEOs have trailed their fingers through the slurry of other people’s links looking for a pattern. But perhaps a majority of people take as their starting point: “what are the competition doing?” We start from a slightly different point: “what signals are Google telling us are important.”
In effect, rather than starting out by looking at what particular links an individual site has, we look for patterns that show up across a vertical (or ‘market’ if you’re old fashioned like what I am).
Firstly, we draw down a big stump of data for all of the sites currently ranking in the top 10 for a given keyword. Immediately, we get a useful pointers as to what’s happening – if there are lots of links then you can be sure it’s a keenly fought market and you’ll have to spend big to compete.
But obviously the brute force of numbers only takes us so far in understanding what Google is looking for. Here’s some of the other metrics we look at:
Distribution of Anchor Text

For each dataset we download, we attribute what we think would class as ‘brand links’ – either URLs, brand names, company names etc. That means we can split out the anchor text in various ways (this example is just one way you might like to slice the data).
It’s also instructive to look at the number of referring domains against the absolute volume of links. Another thing we’re seeing is that sitewides are having little effect in some markets – and maybe even harmful in others.

Comparing these two graphs, for example, we can see that while 16% of the volume of links is anchor text, only 3% of those links are from unique domains – so we can see that there are lot of sitewide anchor text links supporting the top 10.
Our gut feeling at the moment – supported by recent behaviour in the SERPs – is that Google is twiddling the knobs downward when it comes to anchor text. Keyword anchor text is, logically, something that is rarely seen outside of links built for SEO. It stands to reason that as Google continues its long, grinding war of attrition on SEOs it would start to dampen the importance of anchor text.
Geographic Distribution

There’s been a lot of talk over the last couple of years (not least on here) about the importance of geotargetting.
Most SEOs accept that the locality of links plays a role somewhere down the line – especially when looking at local flavours of Google, be it the .co.uk, the .de or whatever. With the data on tap, you can actually figure out whether its an important factor in your market or not.
It also raises side issues. Large volumes of links from particular countries like India can indicate that there is mass, offshore linkbuilding going on. Not necessarily so, but it can give you a hunch as to what kind of market you’re looking at.
Site vs. Market Comparisons
Of course, it’s when you look at individual sites against the market average that you start to really get a feel for things…

Looking at individual sites is very enlightening in a lot of cases. Often you can spot which sites are strong and which are weak just by looking over a heads-up graphic display like this one.
This is particularly useful when looking at your own client: you can see if you’re overcooking on anchor text, short on volume or not paying enough attention to the brand.
Other Stuff
Types of Domain
We also slice the referring domains to see what kinds of sites are linking in. We’ve still got a long way to go to being able to automatically categorise domains, but it’s fairly simple to start building up a ‘whitelist’ of importance domains (newspaper sites, education/government, Wikipedia etc) and look for blog footprints to help whittle down the numbers.
In some markets, we see that news coverage is more important than others, for example. We try to break down links into categories:
- Whitelist “power sites”
- News coverage
- Government / education sites
- Blogs
- Affiliate sites (look for patterns in the structure of the referring links)
- Social media
- PR sites
- Directories
- Article sites
- Forums and messageboards
- “Other”
In the interests of honesty, it’s worth noting that the biggest chunk of any such analysis is (for us) ‘other’ 🙂
Again, it’s worth knowing what kind of linking is going on across the market so you can plan a strategy that reflects what Google apparently think is ‘natural’.
Nofollow vs. Follow
This near-religious debate in SEO often misses the point. The real question is: “what does Google think a natural backlink profile looks like?” The follow/nofollow pattern is part of that mix and worth exploring.
Common Backlinks
A side effect of doing a big, market-wide exercise like this is that you can start to pull in the common links. While not being a big believer in the value of “just getting the links the other guys have” myself, it is instructive to see where 5 or 6 sites might be getting links from… 😉
Reading the Runes….
SEO is not a science and the truth can’t be found in numbers. It is all to easy to be beguiled into thinking “just one more link…” when you’re pushing for a certain slot. Things that don’t show up in the numbers – like brand, trust, regional variations, personalisation and more – can be equally if not more important.
So whenever you undertake big number-crunching exercises like these – keep some perspective about you. SEO isn’t just about coming up with a formula. It is about understanding the rhythms and patterns in the SERPs, applying a little prognostication and imagination and developing a strategy to outmatch the competition by hook or by crook.
Oh… A Note on Data
Obviously, we can’t download Google’s own index (how nice would that be?) You can choose your own dataset, but we currently use Majestic SEO‘s index.
16 Comments
MC
Hi Paul,
I have a few questions for you…
1) could you define what you mean by the different types of anchor text i,e:
does anchor = keyword focused and containing anchor = links using keywirds within the anchor text
2) within the UK market I have seen enough evidence to sugest that links from UK sites have greater value as these can seem more natural, with this in mind it looks like the balance is majorly offset when looking at the geo link graph.
3) the % of brand anchors seems very low, does this data include natural links?
Thanks,
MC
Paul Carpenter - http://www.itsafamilything.co.uk
Hi MC
Hope that makes sense!
Paul Allen - http://www.advancedinternetmarketing.co.uk
“Our gut feeling at the moment – supported by recent behaviour in the SERPs – is that Google is twiddling the knobs downward when it comes to anchor text. Keyword anchor text is, logically, something that is rarely seen outside of links built for SEO. It stands to reason that as Google continues its long, grinding war of attrition on SEOs it would start to dampen the importance of anchor text.”
Very interesting comment… Something I’m inclined to agree with. In my opinion the only natural way of getting anchor text into a link is by buying a domain like “youkeyword.com”…
You also noted nofollow/follow links… Do you think there is value in building nofollow links just to make the link profile look natural??
Thanks for the post!
Paul
Paul Carpenter - http://www.itsafamilything.co.uk
Hi Paul – I think there’s some value, but probably not enough to go out purposefully building nofollow links. It’s another gut-level suspicion that if your backlink profile is 100% clean, anchor text links then it must put you on the radar somewhere. So I don’t particularly focus on it, but generally finding a couple of links every month with the anchor text “see here” on a nofollowed site just keeps everything looking natural.
Joe Griffin - http://www.iacquire.com
We’ve been preaching this message for a long time. I refer to the old way as “keyword jockeying.” Natural link building includes using some keyword-rich anchors, but it’s more about branded anchors, and lot’s of natural looking variable anchors.
The industry is waking up a bit to this concept, but I think we’re still a couple years out before we see widespread change. In the meantime those in the know will reap the benefits of a superior strategy. Domain authority is what it’s all about.
Paul Carpenter - http://www.itsafamilything.co.uk
“Domain authority is what it’s all about.”
Pithily summarised Sir!
chuck - http://www.cranialborborygmus.com
Paul,
I love the graphs! Nice analysis and I agree with your points.
One issue I have is that it seems impossible to know all of the links that google is aware of, and which it counts and which it ignores. I was wondering where you got your link data… and then you told us at the end.
How much do you think Majestic matches up with google… 50%? More? Less? How well it matches (or doesn’t) would seem to have a big impact on the ability one has to analyze the data as it pertains to what google sees and then does…
Chuck
Paul Carpenter - http://www.itsafamilything.co.uk
Hi Chuck
You have, of course, put your finger on the hole in the data – which is that Google’s index isn’t available to us. Does Majestic pick everything up? Absolutely not, but I think it’s the best there is at the moment in terms of volume (currently claiming over a trillion pages in their index).
If Majestic has a weakness, it’s that it picks up a lot of things that Google probably filters out for ranking purposes. All those greybarred scraper sites are definitely crawled, but their influence on rankings will be zilch. They’re just folded into the Majestic data and it’s difficult (though not impossible) to find a way to filter them out… although if you start doing that you might as well build a search engine yourself and have done! 🙂
chuck - http://www.cranialborborygmus.com
Paul,
Thanks for the reply!
As you said, it’s not only if Majestic finds what google finds (and I don’t think any of them are as good at finding things as google), but it’s also whether or not it filters or ignores what google does. I’ve looked at Yahoo Explorer in the past because it reported so many links (though you can only get the first 1000 – which is more than enough to overwhelm me), but that has changed with the Bing take over I think. I’ve heard of Majestic but haven’t really looked at it. I’ll have to do that. Thanks again. Chuck
Dan - http://www.keywordshack.com
I can’t agree more on the point that SEO is not a science – it’s mostly about keeping an ear to the ground, feeling the pulse of the industry and trying to combine what we know about the way Search works with what we suspect the future developments may be.
Corey
Hi Paul,
First, great post. Thank you for sharing the insights.
Quick question, if you don’t mind sharing, what program are you using for your graphs? They are very nicely done.
As to the no-follow I think it important to understand Google’s primary motive, that being they exist to earn a profit and that ability to earn a profit is directly correlated with their ability to serve relevant data when a visitor uses their service then we understand first what it at stake, billions and billions of dollars are.
Google has to guard their system (and billions) against gaming at all costs, just like casinos have to guard themselves against those who cheat. SEO is in someways like those who count cards. We develop our strategies based on what cards (information) has been shown to us and who are the other players at the table.
That being said you can be sure of a couple of things. First the rules of the game can be unique to each game, each gamer and each casino (location). Google will be watching for anything that looks “unnatural” in an effort to make sure they serve true relevant data (which ensures they make billions). So as for no-follow and even anchor based text I try to come as close to the statistical average as possible just like a professional black jack cheat will occasionally throw a game to ensure no one notices them.
Please note, I use the comparison of someone gaming a casion and SEO as an illustration only and do not feel that SEO is dishonest or unethical (unless it is blackhat). It is not meant to offend in anyway.
Thanks,
Corey
Paul Carpenter - http://www.itsafamilything.co.uk
Hi Corey – the graphs are just drawn using Google charts for simplicity’s sake 🙂
Nice analogy about the casino and SEO – I totally get what you’re saying and that’s exactly the stance that we (and probably everyone else in SEO the universe) take. Google control the game and we’re all trying to find out the rules – statistical averages are a good part of that mix…
Besart - http://www.nextseo.net
I really do think that for a success we should build also a lot of nofollow links, not only dofollow links. Sometimes nofollow links can bring more visitors and more sales too, and also these visitors my link back to your site, so you will gain more links.
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mr x
paul,
I love experiments on seo and do r&d on seo. one experiment is worth 1000 expert opinions.
I have already done some of the research you have done before.
for example: I have ranked one long tail only with nofollow links. from past one year we never look if its follow or no follow while building links.
regarding non anchor text linking. We do upto 10% non anchor text linking but related anchor text linking as a must.
We do not use anchor text as “here”, but for example, for shoes as anchor text we use ” buying shoes in London” ” or “where to find shoes in london”. Another observation is questions in anchor text have done good for ranking.
we do negative anchor text like “do not buy golf shoes in summer”
personal anchor text have done good, ” I like buying shoes at xshoes.com”
If you want to rank in docklands or even London, use couple of post codes as anchor text “E14 8RR” (can be a links from some stupid bookmarking site, takes only 2-3 mins).
Use semantic keywords as anchor’s. The words Sample and example are nearly same.
Also use Full bold anchor text .
One very important observation being switching keywords in anchor text.
anchor “usb cable” as “cable usb” . This will only increase traffic.
regarding local.
I would says, its all is and going to be local local & local.
links, servers, domains, linking domains, linking anchors, importantly local content and recent observation being distinctive keywords we use locally.
Also use local postcodes, local names, local phone numbers some where in content.
Regarding the distribution of link. more varied the better, from directory submissions to uploading a document with link on docstoc or some cv uploading sites. Even sticking one-2 adult directory links will only dogood.
Above are just from my own experiments.
wayne cadman - http://www.seonorthampton.co.uk
Great post guys.
Yes we have noticed slight jumps from social media links that are ‘no follow’ these are easy to get and if you join facebook or linked in can be achieved very easily indeed, the same goes for retweets too.
I think Today in terms of link building you have to everything to be seen as a popular website and ranked accordingly.