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ON EDIT: Here is Shaun’s article: SEO – Limit Anchor Text Links To 55 Characters In Length?

Ron Carnell made a very cogent point in this discussion about anchor text. He said, “I would take that article with a very large grain of salt and encourage everyone to try their OWN tests. How a test is conducted will often determine the results and, frankly, there are enough questionable points in that article to cast the entire thing into doubt.”

Okay, that’s probably as far as Ron and I were able to agree as we diverged in viewpoints further on in the discussion. But I want to focus on this point because he raises an issue that is seldom discussed in the SEO field: How a test is conducted will often determine the results ….

Let’s step aside from the “my testing techniques are better than yours” issues and look at other reasons for why you should do your own testing:

• The queries you test for may be very different from the queries other people test for
• The resources you use for testing may be very different from the resources other people test with
• The things you want to test for may be very different from what other people want to test for

We all have our own ideas of what works best. Some people construct tests to prove their ideas work and some people construct tests to learn whether ideas may work and some people construct tests to learn how some ideas work. If someone shares an idea you like, you can (and should) test that idea in a safe environment (not with your money-making production site in most cases) to see if you get similar results.

But don’t stop there. If you like the results of your first test then take the process a little further and stress the test. That is, see how well your idea holds up as you mix in other factors. The closer you bring the test to what you’re actually optimizing for, the better.

This isn’t about learning SEO theory. It’s about taking what you find and determining if it will work for you. The SEO Method is very simple: You experiment, you evaluate, and you adjust.

Just make sure you don’t put your career, your clients, or your production sites at risk. It’s not a good idea to test risky techniques, but if you’re convinced something will work for you, test it on a site you can afford to lose before you run with it. If you don’t take the time to test ideas before you put them into production, don’t complain if you suddenly find yourself losing search referrals.