{"id":8196,"date":"2023-02-15T21:48:56","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T21:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/15\/google-publishes-new-link-best-practices\/"},"modified":"2023-02-15T21:48:56","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T21:48:56","slug":"google-publishes-new-link-best-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/15\/google-publishes-new-link-best-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"Google publishes new link best practices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Google has published a new link best practices in their SEO and search developer documentation. Originally it was a document about how to create crawlable links, but the document has been to include not just how to make links crawlable but also:<\/p>\n<p>Anchor text placements<\/p>\n<p>How to write good anchor text<\/p>\n<p>Internal links within your content<\/p>\n<p>External links from other sites<\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_81 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/15\/google-publishes-new-link-best-practices\/#Crawlable_links\" >Crawlable links<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/15\/google-publishes-new-link-best-practices\/#Anchor_text_placement\" >Anchor text placement<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/15\/google-publishes-new-link-best-practices\/#Writing_anchor_text\" >Writing anchor text<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/15\/google-publishes-new-link-best-practices\/#Internal_links\" >Internal links<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/15\/google-publishes-new-link-best-practices\/#External_links\" >External links<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/15\/google-publishes-new-link-best-practices\/#Why_we_care\" >Why we care<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Crawlable_links\"><\/span>Crawlable links<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The first section is very similar to the original document, which you can see on the <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20221206105457\/https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/crawling-indexing\/links-crawlable\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wayback Machine<\/a>.  The new document now reads, \u201cGenerally, Google can only crawl your link if it\u2019s an\u00a0&lt;a&gt;\u00a0HTML element (also known as\u00a0<em>anchor element<\/em>) with an\u00a0href\u00a0attribute. Most links in other formats won\u2019t be parsed and extracted by Google\u2019s crawlers. Google can\u2019t reliably extract URLs from\u00a0&lt;a&gt;\u00a0elements that don\u2019t have an\u00a0href\u00a0attribute or other tags that perform as links because of script events. Here are examples of links that Google can and can\u2019t parse:\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Anchor_text_placement\"><\/span>Anchor text placement<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Google said, \u201cAnchor text\u00a0(also known as\u00a0<em>link text<\/em>) is the visible text of a link. This text tells people and Google something about the page you\u2019re linking to. Place anchor text between\u00a0&lt;a&gt;\u00a0elements that Google can crawl.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Google also provides some examples of good and bad written placement anchor text.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Writing_anchor_text\"><\/span>Writing anchor text<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>This is another new section where Google wrote, \u201cGood anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to the page that it\u2019s on and to the page it links to. It provides context for the link, and sets the expectation for your readers. The better your anchor text, the easier it is for people to navigate your site and for Google to understand what the page you\u2019re linking to is about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Google also provides some examples of good and bad written anchor text.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Internal_links\"><\/span>Internal links<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Google notes that there is no specific number of links you need and writes, \u201cYou may usually think about linking in terms of pointing to external websites, but paying more attention to the anchor text used for internal links can help both people and Google make sense of your site more easily and find other pages on your site. Every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site. Think about what other resources on your site could help your readers understand a given page on your site, and link to those pages in context.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"External_links\"><\/span>External links<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Google talks about the trust factor of links, how sites who link to you can do so, using the nofollow for spammy links and what about paid links. <\/p>\n<p>Google wrote, \u201cLinking to other sites isn\u2019t something to be scared of; in fact, using external links can help establish trustworthiness (for example, citing your sources). Link out to external sites when it makes sense, and provide context to your readers about what they can expect.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Why_we_care\"><\/span>Why we care<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>SEOs are obsessed with links, and rightfully so, they are an important ranking factor for most modern search engines. So anything Google publishes on the topic should be read by SEOs for them to make decisions about how to manage their link building and management practices.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/google-publishes-new-link-best-practices-393169\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google publishes new link best practices<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Search Engine Land<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google has published a new link best practices in their SEO and search developer documentation. Originally it was a document about how to create crawlable links, but the document has been to include not just how to make links crawlable but also: Anchor text placements How to write good anchor text Internal links within your content External links from other sites Crawlable links The first section is very similar to the original document, which you can see on the Wayback Machine. The new document now reads, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"h5ap_radio_sources":[],"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-seo-blogs"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":false,"author_link":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/author\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}