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How Google Handles Naked Links via @martinibuster https://ift.tt/3ieBojb In a Google Office Hours SEO hangout Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller answered how Google handles links that don’t have anchor text. In a follow up question he answered if text surrounding those kinds of links have an effect. What are Naked Links?There are many kinds of links, including branded links, keyword optimized links, nofollowed links, etc. This question was about a type of link that is referred to as a naked link. A naked link is a link that is in the form of the URL. Here’s an example of how a “naked” link would look on a web page:
Here’s how the HTML would look for the above link: <a href="https://www.example.com">https://www.example.com</a> How Does Google Handle Links Without Anchor Text?The question asked was within the context of auditing the inbound links of client sites and noticing that certain links are coded as naked links. The SEO asking the question wanted to know how Google processed those links. Advertisement Continue Reading Below This is the question:
John Mueller Answers How Google Handles a Bare URLJohn Mueller began his answer by defining what a naked URL is.
Next, Mueller states how Google handles a bare link that does not have an anchor text.
Advertisement Continue Reading Below Related: Advanced Approach to Selecting Anchor Text Keywords in URL for Anchor TextThat’s interesting that Mueller said there is no context in a naked link. What makes it interesting is that there is a school of thought that in the absence of an anchor text that the keywords in the URL might provide Google some information and function like an anchor text. Mueller’s answer seemed to contradict that idea or at least to not affirm it. Might make a good follow up question. Can Surrounding Text and Topic Influence Links?At this point someone else asked a follow up question about the text that surrounds the naked link and if that might play a role.
John Mueller nodded his head in affirmation and said,
The person asking the follow up question repeated his question, this time asking if the content around the link or topic of the article might play a role. Mueller answered:
Annotation Text and Links by Bill SlawskiBill Slawski wrote a fascinating article in 2019 about a patent that was updated to include a scenario that was about using text that surrounds a link (Add to Your Style Guide Annotation Text: Anchor Text Indexing). Advertisement Continue Reading Below Bill Slawski’s article noted:
The article about the patent describes a process where the words immediately surrounding a link could give more meaning to that link, particularly links with anchor text like the word “here” that are frequently used to link to other sites. The article didn’t suggest that Google was using these signals and neither did Mueller. However it was interesting to watch Mueller referring to the context around a link as being “secondary” although he did not elaborate on what he meant by secondary. I messaged Bill Slawski via Facebook Messenger about what Mueller said. This is what Bill said about it:
Advertisement Continue Reading Below What We Learned About Google and Naked LinksMueller affirmed that there is no disadvantage to links coded without anchor text. He affirmed that anchor text is a strong signal. But he also somewhat downplayed the use of surrounding text or page topic as a way to give more meaning to a naked link, saying that yes Google used it but that it was “very secondary.”
SEO via Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/1QNKwvh September 29, 2020 at 12:25AM
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