Text Surrounding Link: Final Proof

Already more than 2 years ago I asked for feedback about text surrounding links on WMW but I have never gotten hold of solid examples so that I could see it myself.

I am happy that today I have seen the final undoubted 100% proof.

Let me explain.

Another SEO company ordered a directory submission from us for one of his clients. He chose to use his own name for use as the submission name, let’s say “Joe Blow”.

The submission was done in the middle of January to several hundred selected directories with varied anchors, descriptions and so forth.

Now when you Google Joe Blow the web site of the client shows up as #1 result.

  • The name is not mentioned on the site.
  • There are no inbound links with that name as anchor pointing to the site.
  • There are no co-citation used.

The only reason for the ranking is that the words “Joe Blow” is mentioned on the detail pages of the directories that are on the same page as the link to the clients site and to see this finally gave me some nice proof of this theory.

(This is a non-competitive name giving only 36,400 hits in Google.)

Keep this in mind while link building.

48 responses » Leave a comment
  1. ctabuk said on May 24, 2007 at 12:16 pm

    I agree, I have one of the more famous usernames around. And I have been using this tatic for years. Thanks

  2. Klettergriffe Kinder said on May 27, 2007 at 9:14 pm

    i agree 100%.

    see you & thanks

    Peter :-)

  3. miko67 said on May 29, 2007 at 9:47 am

    Hi Jim

    I need to be certain about this, so I ask rather out of ignorance:

    Does this article of yours stipulate that while submitting to a directory (even without a “Details” page, but with a description for each link submitted), it really matters a lot what is in the description (of the submitted link) seeing that a name mentioned here can effectively (help) rank the website submitted?

    /miko67

  4. David Eaves said on June 3, 2007 at 1:41 am

    Wow that is impressive, I can believe it to, this directories homepage ranks about 3rd or 4th on Yahoo for my company name, with no mention of the phrase on the homepage or any text links to the homepage using that phrase, I just have a featured link in the directory with quite a few internal links pointing to my page using the phrase. I will make sure I use my clients names on dir submissions from now on.

  5. Zohaib said on June 4, 2007 at 9:27 am

    Good information!! Thanks.

  6. Sucker said on June 4, 2007 at 2:46 pm

    Wow that’s really neat! I’ll have to do more planning when doing directory submissions!

  7. Classifieds said on June 5, 2007 at 9:44 am

    Very informative article. Thanks. I’m going to have to do more planning myself.

  8. Rich Directories said on June 6, 2007 at 5:29 pm

    Jim
    this is very good find. and I am pretty amazes with your research.
    please post more such findings.

  9. Eric said on June 7, 2007 at 10:21 pm

    Hey Jim,

    Your always on top of the SEO information and tips!! This is really great information and ideas and you continue to be the best at SEO! I will continue to use all your tips for my blog http://ambatchmasterpublished.blogspot.com

  10. Abela said on June 14, 2007 at 9:18 am

    Great. Thanks.

  11. Tőzsde Részvény said on June 14, 2007 at 4:29 pm

    It’s a very interesting theory. I’ll try it in practice -;) Thanks this article and quality comments.

  12. Suchmaschinenoptimierung said on June 15, 2007 at 2:16 am

    Can somebody tell me where i can get a „realtime“ backlink check for free for the SEO Results?
    I have the problem that every backlink checker in the Search Engines gives a different result – sometimes more than 500 + or -.
    Do you also know which is the best backlinck checker in web for an SEO beginner?
    Thank you for your answer and greetings.

  13. Inkode said on June 17, 2007 at 11:28 am

    Awesome SEO tip, thanks for comfirming this. I too had suspected but I never heard of any concrete evidence.

    Keep up the good work :)

  14. Artur said on June 20, 2007 at 12:41 pm

    Thanks very

  15. PHP MySql Programmer / Developer said on June 24, 2007 at 7:48 am

    If you are saying text that surrounds the the inbound link is important, I’ve been reading this for years. I have lost track of this since it seems google primarily looks at the inbound links.

    Thanks for the reminder.

  16. Presell Page Man said on June 27, 2007 at 8:52 am

    This effect is covered in a multitude of algorithms and patents related to text analysis and is often widely described as “LSI” - latent semantic indexing.

    What I see all the time is that Google ranks pages (on VERY trusted domains) just because of the content in those pages, not necessarly the keywords being used.

    This means I see pages rank for keyword phrases RELATED or synonm for the words being used inside the content …

    I must admit that I only saw this on old and very trusted .edu domains, but I assume the effect and “wideness” of the spectrum of synonyms being used for ranking depends on the domains trust…

    best regards
    presell page man

  17. zzrdvark said on July 2, 2007 at 3:24 am

    Thanks!

  18. wow gold said on July 2, 2007 at 4:36 am

    That’s really cool.

  19. SEO Blog said on July 2, 2007 at 5:06 am

    Interesting finding. Webmasters cannot afford to overlook the description when submitting to directories.

  20. Cambodia News said on July 2, 2007 at 5:22 am

    He must have a unique name…with very little competition. Many web directories don’t even show the link owner’s name in their listings.

  21. paradise philippines said on July 2, 2007 at 11:45 am

    wow. For me this is very interesting (if it is indeed true). It’s amazing how google can track matching relevant keywords across different websites…

  22. Chris Heath said on July 5, 2007 at 1:26 pm

    Search engines still put too much emphasize on web site name

  23. Mp3 player said on July 7, 2007 at 10:51 pm

    That’s really cool.

  24. unique articles directories said on July 12, 2007 at 7:53 pm

    A agree with you
    keep up the good work

  25. Eric said on July 17, 2007 at 3:52 pm

    Where has Jim been? He must be doing something right and taking a really long vacation this summer! I only wish I could be a SEO guru like him and take that much time off.

  26. hemşire said on July 18, 2007 at 8:37 pm

    links surrounding words dramticly increased our google position too.

  27. Xavier said on July 19, 2007 at 7:17 am

    I totally agree. Keep posting that magical post!

  28. vince said on July 20, 2007 at 7:39 pm

    I think this theory need to be extend further because the competition isn’t really high to give more significant results. But I agree that this is 100% true, but the competition isn’t that really competitive.

  29. chat said on July 25, 2007 at 6:25 pm

    It seems absolutely hillarous to me that people still think search can be determined worldwide out of a few people in silicon valley. Locall knowledge and culture is ignored

  30. itiraf said on July 25, 2007 at 6:25 pm

    perfect

  31. kantar said on August 3, 2007 at 12:24 am

    good works good blog

  32. Sports Betting said on August 8, 2007 at 3:06 am

    Nice article and site glad I stumbled across it. Does anyone else use that it does give some link value

  33. ian said on August 16, 2007 at 10:53 pm

    Wow thanks for the info, going to give this a try with a few pages on my site.

  34. uskshop said on August 18, 2007 at 8:43 pm

    Good information!! Thanks.

  35. Uk Link said on August 22, 2007 at 11:55 am

    Thanks man, just what I was looking for.

  36. Jim Karter said on September 11, 2007 at 8:23 pm

    Thats a nice find.

  37. Nakul Goyal said on September 25, 2007 at 7:17 am

    Very interesting information, thanks Jim.

  38. hitta min sida said on October 14, 2007 at 11:40 am

    Very interesting article as always Jim!

  39. Dog said on October 19, 2007 at 11:19 pm

    Thank you for providing the information!

  40. BBG said on October 26, 2007 at 1:55 am

    Thank you for this article.

  41. Links said on October 31, 2007 at 3:05 pm

    Good SEO tip, thanks.

  42. Podnośniki Warsztatowe said on November 14, 2007 at 12:32 pm

    Very nice and intresting article
    please more ;)

    greetings, Podnośniki Warsztatowe

  43. Ronn said on December 30, 2007 at 8:55 pm

    Thanks for sharing your findings on this. I’ll put this into practice.

    Keep up the great work! Regards, Ronn

  44. dave so said on January 21, 2008 at 4:31 pm

    very interesting. i wonder if the new google update affects this.

  45. Glatze said on March 26, 2008 at 10:44 pm

    this is very interesting. i always thought it wasnt true. now you gave the proof. does anyone else have other examples?

  46. ventrilo hosting said on April 22, 2008 at 9:08 am

    interesting analysis

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