Anchor Text Link Length
Today after much internal discussion and reviewing user complaints, we’ve made the decision to tighten down on anchor text link length abuse.
The EzineArticles editorial guidelines section 2.f.xii. has been updated:
“We do not allow articles which have strategic keyword anchor text links in the body to your domain that do not add informational value to the article. Any use of anchored text links to websites that you own should add value to the article topic rather than stand out as an obvious abuse of anchored text link. The goal with this policy is to be a good net citizen by only allowing articles that add value with the anchored text links rather than for pure SEO reasons. Please limit your anchor text link length to 3 words.“
The sentence in blue is the change. Prior to this, there was no anchor text link length guideline.
This is a quality “guideline” and not a hardfast rule. That means we may allow a few more words in the anchor text link length if our editor feels that the quality, originality, and value of the article content warrants the exception.
The end goal with this change is to prevent spammy-looking Resource Boxes. A handful of members had more than half their resource box linked up in anchored text links (yeah, like entire multiple sentences) and that’s abusive in our opinion.
Isn’t the purpose of anchoring text as a link to make the link searchable?
Why would you want to link more than a word or three? More than that isn’t really condusive to quality search engine linking.
I guess I don’t see the point. But then I really like natural links with the monstermoneymaker.com type links to give people a real link even if the publisher doesn’t complete the transaction of publishing the link.
It just saves time.
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