Nevertheless, why is it so bad to link to the homepage with "homepage apples" instead of "homepage" if the homepage (the whole site) is about apples?

I would guess because it reads "forced" and it is definitely not done for visitors. After all, it is not like you have more than one home page and need to distinguish between them by calling one "homepage apples".

It' s not common use and not done for visitors, right, but it's not against them. "Apples" in "Homepage apples" may be not needed, superfluous, but therefore it is already spam?

Hey, there even may be users sometimes who are glad about this clarification, because Google sent them to a subpage about for example healthy apple juice. So they are not sure what the whole site is about. Is the whole site about apple juice, apples, fruits, beverages or healthy nutrition? It still has a descriptive function and it still is a correct description.

The recommendation is likely to discourage you from using this tactic for stuffing keywords into your page or internal links.

What benefit (other than an attempt at SEO) would this provide your users?

I don't think there is likely to be a black/white rule here; I doubt Google has them. It's the CONTEXT that is important. I would be wary of:

1) using k/w anchors in breadcrumb, or navigation to home page - why would you unless you were trying to squeeze some benefit?

Looking at in-page Analytics I'm staggered by the percentage of people who click 'HOME' - even on the home page. Interfering with that is a big usability no-no aside from anything else.

2) using k/w anchors anywhere where it is not called for (i.e. anywhere that you don't want to send a real person through it).

The text is there to help people; to describe what you're linking to in the expectation that they will want to click that link. If it doesn't help them and they're not likely to click it then (a) the link is probably superfluous to begin with and (b) 'optimising' it is probably not a good idea.

1) using k/w anchors in breadcrumb, or navigation to home page - why would you unless you were trying to squeeze some benefit?

I have to disagree on the breadcrumbs. They tell people where they are now and what's on "high levels" of the site.

I'll use the breadcrumbs here as an example.

Home / Forums Index / Google / Google SEO News and Discussion

How could they "mean something" to visitors if they weren't "keyword rich"?

About the only other thing I can think to do without keywords would be something like Home / Back 3 / Back 2 / Back 1 but that doesn't seem very visitor friendly to me, because if a visitor landed on this page from a SE they would have no clue what page they're going to if they click one of the crumbs.

I think its mainly about usability. People are used to certain things, and how things are done. If a user sees a link on a page with the text "Home" it is immediately clear what the link is, and where it will lead to.

Changing from the norm is not always a good thing to do. Keep things simple and your user experience will be good.

Mack.

@jakebohall, FranticFish:
Thanks for your ideas, but mainly they don't hit the point in my case.

1. I don't link with "insurance", "big apples, green apples red apples" or just "apples" to my homepage about apples.

2. "Homepage apples" is a correct descriptive and short anchor and therefore it has a benefit for the user. The same benefit as "homepage" has.

3. No user will stop clicking, when reading homepage apples.

4. As I already explained, "homepage apples" is more descriptive for some of them. "Homepage" does not tell very informative what the whole site is about, especially for user who enter the site via a subpage for the first time.

So it is still a userfriendly link, may be a little bit better than homepage alone. An additional small benefit for me doesn't change it in a bad link. And hey, it is a very small benefit. We talk about a single internal navi link, not about an external PR7-backlink from Microsoft.

@JD_Toims

You misunderstood me, I meant don't replace the word 'Home' with 'My Top Keyword' in your navigation. IMO the most useful word for your home page in any navigation menu is 'HOME'.

@Deeper

I don't think you'll ever distill the 'magic formula' for internal linking because acceptable/unacceptable could vary according to so many things:
- repetition of k/w on the page
- repetition of k/w in links on the page (as a percentage of links)
- position of link on the page
- repetition of k/w in links to the page (as a percentage of links)
- repetition of k/w in links to other pages in the site
- authority/relevance of IBLs using that k/w
I'm sure other people could think of more factors that might be used.

The weighting given to different factors could vary from niche to niche and keyword to keyword, against an absolute standard set by Google or by one determined by arriving at the mean of all (authority) competitors for the keyword.

Then lets just raise the possibility that Google might disregard internal anchor text to the home page completely (I would if I were them).

Or... they could penalise for it. About 7 years ago they used to penalise for changing footer links to the home page to include anchor text on existing sites, but not for sites that launched with anchor text footer links. I was caught in such a penalty: it was the last time I tried to chase algorithms, and that's what it sounds like you're doing.

"Homepage" does not tell very informative what the whole site is about

True. But as long as the page itself does that, I'd always use the word 'home'.

You misunderstood me, I meant don't replace the word 'Home' with 'My Top Keyword' in your navigation. IMO the most useful word for your home page in any navigation menu is 'HOME'.

Gotcha! I thought you were saying to not use a keyword for any of the crumbs.

@FranticFish:
I don't search for a magic formula.
All I say is: "homepage apples" may be unusual, but in my eyes there is no essential reason to be considered as spammy link, bad for users".

May be John Mueller didn't mean my case, I don't know. May be he meant a pure KW-anchor which doesn't show the user that it leads to the homepage.

OK, this is a topic that I'd remembered had come up before, and it has. Here's a discussion, worth reading, from 2010, which mentions some specific points that would concern me....

Internal Links to Home page - how best to use them
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4126434.htm[http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4126434.htm [webmasterworld.com]

A possibly important factor noted in that thread, one which tedster would mention from time to time, was about whether you were adding the anchor text or whether it was there from the start....

This is a tactic better undertaken when you launch - retrofitting keywords into the "Home" links at a later date has been known to cause penalties.

I can't speak to the penalty, but when Ted would mention this kind of issue, I'd certainly keep it in mind.

In the past, I have added alt text to the top home-link global image logo after the fact, matching the keywords in the EMD brand name in the graphic, as in "Keyword1 Keyword2.com Home", and the site suffered no penalties. Note that the alt attribute text did correctly reflect the text that was in the logo, with "Home" added to identify it as the site's default link to home.

I've never tried "Home Keyword1 Keyword2", though, and probably never would, simply because it doesn't read well... and it does feel spammy.

I don't understand the context with the question about the double internal links on one page.

This has to do with a test that's been run several times... to the effect that if you have more than one nav link from a page to a given destination page, then only the anchor text of the first link counts. Bruce Clay gave a widely discussed presentation at PubCon about this several years ago.

The issue here is that if you have both an image link and a text link to home (as you would, eg, on a site with an image link and, say, breadcrumbs), how best to handle this?

I've seen the issue get complicated for SEOs who knew of potential pitfalls and were trying to avoid possible penalties, where the branded keyword anchor text was included in the home link on a CSS nav menu, actually without the word "Home" (as it didn't fit).

In the nav menu instance of this, the SEO actually "nofollowed" both the image link and the nav link to avoid penalties, which hit me on the one hand as being overcautious, and on the other hand as perhaps prudent, given the degree of knowledge he had about how Google might look at this. It hits me upon reflection that "nofollowing" one of those links actually nofollowed both of them... so the second bit of extra-caution was redundant.

I should also add that I've seen the anchor text alt tag accidentally removed from a number of logo image Home links, and I didn't see any change whatsoever in ranking.

It is o.k. to use keyword anchors when linking to a subpage. Why not when linking to the homepage, where is the difference?

Perhaps because it's often overkill and unnecessary. Most other nav links are descriptive and needed to guide the user. "Home", though, has a name, as does "Contact" and "Privacy". You wouldn't say "Keyword Contact Us" or "Contact Us Keyword", though... but you might say "Contact Keyword.com" (something I wouldn't do, btw).

I'm guessing that adding keywords to the Home link would only hurt a site that was already on the edge of being flagged for manipulation, but I wouldn't say so categorically. FranticFish lists many of the nuanced factors that might enter into this.

In the nav menu instance of this, the SEO actually "nofollowed" both the image link and the nav link to avoid penalties, which hit me on the one hand as being overcautious, and on the other hand as perhaps prudent, given the degree of knowledge he had about how Google might look at this. It hits me upon reflection that "nofollowing" one of those links actually nofollowed both of them... so the second bit of extra-caution was redundant.

This is an interesting point to me and I think it's use boils down to what page(s) you intend to rank.

By putting the links to the home page on the page, even nofollowed, it drops the other link weight by the % attributed to the links to the home page.

It also stops the internal link weight flow to the home page, which means if you want the home page to rank for queries it's likely better to not use nofollow on the links, because you kill the internal link flow [importance] by nofollowing links to it.

* There are some sites I work on that are "deep" and I couldn't care less about home page entries, so not having links to the home page count might not be an issue on them.

If you have a case like mine where a site is built for "deep entry" and don't care if the home page ranks, then in-my-opinion it would likely be better to JavaScript the links on to the pages from a disallowed JS file so the other links on the page don't have the weight they pass "dampened" by the nofollowed links.

Note: I'm not sure either is a technique I would use, because I think it might make hierarchy a bit more difficult for SEs and could possibly cause other issues, but I also haven't tested to see if there is a meaningful impact one way or the other either.

@Robert:
Thanks for your insights.

"First link counts":
Did you hear the last hangout (august 30) and JMs comment about double internal links (in nav and content of one page)? It is at 0:28:15. He stressed that Google identifies different sections of a site and the links in them. In my ears this means that there is NOT a strict "first link counts" and that both links count anyhow.

"Additional KW is unnecessary"
You say "homepage apples" is unnecessary. I wonder why everybody refuses to accept the fact that it gives an useful ADDITIONAL information for the user.

"Home" says "here it leads to the homepage" - "whatever topic it may have, just guess".
"Home apples" says "here it leads to the homepage and the homepage/website is about apples".
This information is actually useful for all user visiting the site for the first time. This kind of information is exactly the sense of anchors. The homepage has content and a topic, like every subpage.

In the thread you mentioned someone had a good idea by using the domain as anchor. Nice idea, worth thinking about it.

You say "homepage apples" is unnecessary. I wonder why everybody refuses to accept the fact that it gives an useful ADDITIONAL information for the user.

It could be because it's not what we think, agree with, or don't agree with that matters, it's Google's algo and how it scores things that counts. Convincing us you think there's a good reason for something won't get you anywhere, because we don't write the algo or have any influence on what it determines to be "ok" or "unnatural".

In my ears this means that there is NOT a strict "first link counts" and that both links count anyhow.

Test it.

It doesn't really matter what anyone thinks someone's saying or not. What matters is how the algo scores things and in the tests I've seen and/or done only the first link text counts [except for fragment identifiers], but feel free to set up a test of your own to see if things have changed since the last round of testing I know of -- I would guess many of us would like to hear your results.

Homepage:
Sure, the algo counts finally but the algo could change, especially if its behaviour is not logical or inconsistent. So it always makes sense to understand things "in theory" at first. First things come first. What I will do or not due to the present supposed (!) algo reality is something different.

I don't think Robert and the others here only disagree with me just because the algo finally may behave in its own way (btw, you know this behaviour for sure?). It's obviously their own opinion.

This is o.k., I insist only because I explained why "apples" is an additional helpful info, but everyone says it is not - without telling me where my thoughts are wrong.


First link counts:
Things change. First link counts may not be valid any more.

Some months ago Matt Cutts recommended using internal content-links because they are good for the user AND strengthen the linked page.
Why saying this if the content link can't count as 2. link in many cases (if it is in the nav already)?

For what it's worth, I've sometimes looked at how Matt Cutts designs his blog to see what might be HIS preferred way of design/linking (and a possible indicator of acceptable practices). I realize that his blog has great authority, so he may be able to get away with more liberal linking practices; however, on ALL pages, he links back to his top level page using the same keywords found in the <title> of the top-level page. On the top-level page, he repeats the <title> terms in an <h1>, and on internal pages, the phrase is large, but in a <p> tag (no h1) linking back to the main page. Obviously, he ranks very well for those terms (but maybe his site gets special love from Google). I tried this format recently, and saw a drop in ranking (page 2 to page 4). It may be a temporary drop (per the ranking-change delay mentioned in a previous patent), but I may have to revert back to something more conservative after a period of time.

I realize that his blog has great authority, so he may be able to get away with more liberal linking practices; however, on ALL pages, he links back to his top level page using the same keywords found in the <title> of the top-level page.

crobb305, thanks for looking at Matt's site. While generally we don't talk about specifics of other sites, Matt's site is so prominent that it's fair game, and I think it does provide some insights. Several thoughts here...

IMO, Matt has also used this site as a test bed, I think to get a better idea of what webmasters have to deal with. Obviously, his prominence makes that a little bit difficult (as he's got an atypically large inbound link base), but he has gone through periods of testing... changing his site name, temporarily disabling his server redirect to his "www" canonical url, etc. The site is otherwise probably a likely indicator of Google's best technical practices... it would be pointless for Matt to build it any other way. Obviously, Matt doesn't need to try to get away with anything.

The site is built as a typical blog, using the standard title/heading/permalink setup. Regarding internal linking, I think it is a good example of a blog setup to look at.

...on ALL pages, he links back to his top level page using the same keywords found in the <title> of the top-level page

To clarify how I see it...

He links back to his blog home page using "Home" in the anchor text on his top menu. That's the first link to blog home on all of his blog pages.

Right below the top menu, also links back to his blog home page using "Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO", which in effect is the "permalink" for his blog home page.

So, he's got two links back to home. I don't think his second link is in any way an attempt at optimization... it's just the way blogs work. It's not the same as adding keywords to an existing "Home" link. I'm assuming that the anchor text in these second links back to home is not giving him any kind of keyword boost...

Note that the url of blog Home is...

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

His nav links to his other pages are also the standard title/ heading/ permalink setup, right out of the box. I mention this only because I think you feel they're something spammy or overoptimized about this, and there isn't. What may be spammy for other sites in conjunction with this setup could be too many exact match inbound links, too much phrase repetition, etc. I suspect there's no "special love from Google" for Matts site... but his unusual prominence, coupled with unique and authoritative information he can provide, might make it look that way.

So, he's got two links back to home. I don't think his second link is in any way an attempt at optimization... it's just the way blogs work. It's not the same as adding keywords to an existing "Home" link... His nav links to his other pages are also the standard title/ heading/ permalink setup, right out of the box. I mention this only because I think you feel they're something spammy or overoptimized about this, and there isn't.

Thanks for the reply Robert Charlton. I definitely didn't see MC's linking method as spammy or a tactic for optimization, I just thought it might support the general practice of linking back to the homepage using keywords (especially if the linked phrase is an exact match of the homepage title). I was mainly replying to the OP's question, "It is o.k. to use keyword anchors when linking to a subpage. Why not when linking to the homepage, where is the difference?".

Would you agree that it's probably ok to link back to the homepage using keywords (not a random or spammy selection, but perhaps using those in the <title> of the homepage -- especially an exact match of the <title>)? Maybe this strengthens or reinforces the site's theme? I don't use blogs (yet), I am a relic with traditional websites, so I'm curious if the same acceptable linking practices apply to both (i.e., perhaps websites can replicate the title/heading/permalink structure of blogs).

crobb305 - If you read my above two posts carefully, you'll see that I've covered it pretty much in as much detail as I think I can without going over it again. FranticFish and others have also covered it.

There's no "one rule fits all".... IMO, "Home Keyword Keyword" really does look spammy.

The "permalink" back to home on a blog is something built into blog software. On a traditional website, I frankly wouldn't want the home page title as the first text on every one of my pages... which, if you think about it, is what's happening on the blog. My guess is that Google makes all sorts of allowances for blog structure when it ranks them... but I don't know that.

Again, Matt has "Home" as the anchor text in his top menu, which is the first link on the page. I doubt that linking as you describe would create an effect different from that setup as long as you had another link to home, as Matt does, preceding your title link. I myself wouldn't do it, though, simply because it's adding distracting text to all of your pages... and, since this isn't a blog permalink, it might be seen as spammy.

Adding the home page title to your first link-to-home anchor text globally, though, would be somewhat different, and, IMO, it definitely would not be a good thing to do.

@crobb305:
The title tag as anchor would be very long!?

@crobb305: The title tag as anchor would be very long!?

Deeper,

Robert Chartlon and I were talking about Matt Cutts' internal linking structure. MC links to his top-level blog page (mattcutts.com/blog) from ALL internal pages using an exact match of the top-level page <title> tag: "Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO". Whether or not it would be "very long" depends on your title, but that's how MC does it, and I propose that there is nothing spammy about using this type of link structure. The terms in his title tag (and internal links back to the homepage using this phrase) contain very competitive SEO terms, and he ranks well for "google seo". I see your point, though... maybe your site wouldn't look right using the title tag as a link on all internal pages; but, I think it could reinforce the site's theme, provided that it's an exact title match and not a mismatch of random/spammy keywords. Just a theory. I figure that MC's blog is a testbed of sorts, and perhaps he uses acceptable techniques that we can replicate. It seems to be working for him as he has utilized that link structure for a very long time. Like I said in the previous post, I realize that his site has great authority/trust, so he may be able to get away with a more liberal linking structure than the rest of us.

C

Again, Matt links to "Home" first in his top nav, and then has a global permalink to his home page with the home page title... consistent with all the other permalinks on the site. This is not the same as "Home Keyword Keyword", which is what the original questions here were about.

I should add that those permalinks back to home, I am sure, have nothing to do with Matt's rankings. To think they do is like thinking you can pull yourself up off the ground by tugging on your shoelaces. IMO, it's really the inbound links to home that rank the site. Again, it's unlikely that the second anchor is even counted.

I can't state all this categorically, though, because each site and each case is different. IMO, if your home page isn't ranking, you've got problems that go beyond tuning up your anchor text.

Also, the phrase "get away with" suggests a mindset to me that's unproductive with current Google SEO. It's as if you're thinking about SEO as pushing certain signals up to the spam line... and I don't think that's a good use of time or energy, and is more likely to hurt than to help. It may work for churn-and-burn spam. It doesn't go down well with domains that are in it for the long term.

This is not the same as "Home Keyword Keyword", which is what the original questions here were about.

Fair enough. I misunderstood the OP question I think, which I initially thought was asking about general links back to the homepage using keywords only. I see what you're saying now about "home keyword keyword". I still think the permalink structure is interesting, and I am experimenting with one of my traditional websites (not a blog) to see if I can get away with replicating that structure (including a link back to the home page using the homepage <title> as anchor), in addition to a separate "home" link above it (or linking the logo to home).

@crobb305:
"Home KW" or "home apples" is the example I have been mentioning all the time.
KW only is missing the information of the homepage. Not good for the user.

"First link counts", do you know this rule? As the title-anchor of MC is a second link one the site, it does not count and therefore MC even could place an anchor like "KW1, KW2,KW3,KW4....10" because Google discounts it anyway.
At least this rule is supposed by most people....

Therefore MC's title-anchor is not a relevant example and therefore YOUR title anchor must be the FIRST link on your test site.

That's what Robert wants to say (I suppose).

At least this rule is supposed by most people...

It's not what some of us *suppose*, personally, it's what the most recent tests I've seen, done or know of have *proved*.

As I said previously: test it for yourself and, please, feel free to post your results.

[edited by: JD_Toims at 11:19 pm (utc) on Sep 5, 2013]

Deeper,

I get the "first link counts" concept, but you didn't make mention of first links in your question at the start of this post. You just asked why you can use keywords when linking to internal pages, so why not the homepage? My point was that you probably can have keywords in the links to the homepage, and used MC's blog as an example. Thank you for clarifying the first-link issue.

Nevertheless, why is it so bad to link to the homepage with "homepage apples" instead of "homepage" if the homepage (the whole site) is about apples? It is o.k. to use keyword anchors when linking to a subpage. Why not when linking to the homepage, where is the difference?

@crobb305:
I understand... yes, the rule was not in my eye when starting this thread, because I dont intend to have two internal homepage links on one page.

JD_Toims:
It may be proved for you, it's just a part of the truth IMHO, because I think it depends on many things which can't be tested reliably. And as I stated already, MC wouldn't praise the power of internal content links if they were clearly discounted consistently.

"Most recent" means?

I get the "first link counts" concept, but you didn't make mention of first links in your question at the start of this post.

crobb305 - What deeper posted in his question was a concern about "double internal links on one page". I brought up the concept of "first link counts" as an explanation for that.

I spent a half-hour or so with Bruce Clay discussing first link counts after Bruce presented at PubCon, and I'm convinced by the tests. Bruce is also not the only one who's tested this; most SEOs believe it. That said, things can change.

The other issue, which I also mentioned in my post, is tedster's point, one which he made frequently...

...retrofitting keywords into the "Home" links at a later date has been known to cause penalties.

So, I wouldn't edit a "Home" link to add keywords. The question of adding a second link is an open one, though, not the same as retrofitting an existing link, and effects probably will vary from site to site.

I understand... yes, the rule was not in my eye when starting this thread, because I dont intend to have two internal homepage links on one page.

Deeper, I know what you mean. I didn't at first, so that was my misunderstanding. I'm glad you started this thread. :)

"...retrofitting keywords into the "Home" links at a later date has been known to cause penalties." -- So, I wouldn't edit a "Home" link to add keywords. The question of adding a second link is an open one, though, not the same as retrofitting an existing link, and effects probably will vary from site to site.

Robert, that is an excellent point. Thank you for reminding us of Tedster's comment about that. This has definitely been an interesting thread.