Google updates its guide to best practices for links: 3 key tips for the links on your website
Google just updated their Best practice guide for links, a document in which he recalls that his algorithm “uses links as a signal to determine the relevance of the pages and to find new pages to track.” For this reason, it offers a series of examples that will help you understand how to create crawlable links so that Google is able to find other pages within the main website and also know how the anchor text can be improved so that both users and Google itself They can better understand your content.
These tips refer to both external links (to other websites) and internal ones, to other pages within your website. In fact Google remembers that it is necessary that each page has at least one link to another page within your own website, such as the background of a story or the causes that led to a decision.
So here we leave you a summary of what Google recommends that you do to have better links.
1. Make your links trackable
Generally, Google is only able to crawl a link if it has an HTML element (known as an anchor element or anchor text) along with an href attribute. It is unable to reliably extract a URL if the elements are missing href attributes or other tags that function as links. On the other hand, Google remembers the importance of the URL in the element resolving to a real web address to which Google’s crawlers are able to send requests.
So, as an example of links that Google can parse we would have basic structures like =”https://example.com”> or =»/products/category/shoes»>
On the contrary, there are link structures that Google does not recommend, as or
2. Structure your anchor texts well
It is known as anchor text, link text or anchor text, when visible text within a link. This tells users and Google something relevant about the page being linked to. Using anchor texts well will allow Google to better understand the topic of the page to which it is linking.
Where to place the anchor text
The text must be placed between elements, so that Google will be able to crawl it. Example of a good anchor text:
In the case of using images as links, Google can use the attribute alt of the img element as an anchor text, so it is necessary to add an alternative text that describes the images to boost SEO positioning. Example: 
How to write good anchor text
1. It must be descriptive
Google explains that a good anchor text is the one that provides context for the link and creates expectations in your readers, so it must be descriptive and concise. In addition, it must have relevance, both to the page it is on and to the page it is linked to and avoid very generic texts, such as “click here” or “read more«.
This is one of the examples that Google puts of descriptive anchor text:
For a complete list of cheeses available to purchase, see the list of cheese types
2. It should not be very long
Another example of bad anchor text is when it is too long:
Starting next Tuesday, the Knitted Cow invites local Wisconsin residents to its grand reopening by also offering cow-shaped ice sculpturesto the first 20 clients.
Which could be changed to a more concise one like:
Starting next Tuesday, the Knitted Cow invites local Wisconsin residentsto its grand reopening by also offering cow-shaped ice sculptures to the first 20 clients.
3. Naturalness
Another suggestion that Google makes us is to write our texts naturally and avoid including all the keywords related to the page that is linked. Must be Avoid giving the impression that you are forcing the use of keywords within the anchor text.
4. Spacing
Furthermore, it is It is essential to give context to the links, giving the corresponding importance to the words that appear before and after the links and avoid accumulating many links together, as in this example of malpractice:
I’ve written about cheeseso many times this year.
3. Use external links correctly
Links to other websites outside your website give readers more confidence, as they can be used to cite information sources or relevant information. It is necessary use them only when they can give readers more context about what to expect, for example, for cite sources.
Wheels of Emmental cheese that were exposed to music tasted milder compared to control wheels of cheese (which did not undergo that musical treatment), according to a recent study by Swiss researchers, with the full findings available at Cheese in Surround Sound: an experiment in culinary art.
the attribute nofollow must be used when you don’t trust the source and to reflect this, Google gives a very clear example: you are a cheese enthusiast and someone published a story badmouthing your favorite cheese, for which you want to write an article in response; however, you don’t want to give the site some of its reputation from your link. This would be a good time to use nofollow.
In case your site users can embed links within a website, such as within a forum section or question and answer sites, attributes can also be added ugc or nofollow to these links.
Image: Depositphotos
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