Anchor Text

"Fuzzy" matching or Exact text?

[Canton]

When setting up reciprocal link exchanges, directory submissions, etc., has anyone found, researched or cultivated a specific way to go about using anchor text?

Or, more exactly, do the search engines treat anchor text in a "fuzzy" manner, e.g. - "Blue Widgets in City/State" as anchor text would potentially lend weight to your site for "widgets," "blue widgets", "widgets in City/State".

Or is it an exact rendering, e.g. - using "Blue Widgets in City/State" as anchor text lends weight only for the exact phrase "Blue Widgets in City/State"?

~Canton

[MarkWolk]

It looks like search engines give a little more importance to the exact phrase. I.e. try the search miserable failure on Google and compare the results with failure miserable... knowing that the majority of hyperlinked text on blogs etc. leading to these results was the first variant.