Linking from own site to improve rank

[louise_w_uk]

A site I built has category text links using keywords about that category at the bottom of the pages. The links use the full url of the page they link to including [www....] at the start. A while ago Google picked up these keyword links and it improved the ranking vastly, putting many pages of the site in the top 5.

However now the pages are dropping rapidly down to the second or third pages of the index. Do keyword links work or does that only apply to incoming links from other domain names?.

[rogerd]

I think keyword links are good practice where they make sense. I.e., if your page is about "widget polishing", having a keyword link to that page makes sense. A search engines tryo to figure out what pages are about, keyword links are one clue. Looking specifically at Google, their algo has fluctuated on the weight applied to internal link text, which, of course, is easily manipulated.

If your pages are slipping, you might try to get some external links to those pages.

[howiejs]

There is a two word search (the biggest one in our industry) that has a site in the top 10 - with NO text on the page - just an image to click to the next page that actually has the content

It is all about the links pointing to this site - AND the theme of the pages - as the link text that I checked does not focus on the actual search term. . .