Can anchor text do it alone?

Or do the key words also have to appear in the document?

[Deepcreek]

Am I correct in assuming that a key word phrase in the anchor text of an inbound link is of no SE value unless the destination page is correspondingly optimized for that phrase, or at least contains that phrase?

In other words, does the anchor text have to appear on both the sending and receiving page, or (this is my real question...) can a phrase that only appears in the anchor text benefit the destination page?

[treeline]

There are many cases where a page is #1 without the text appearing on the page. Anchor text alone can do this, in sufficient quantity. Look up info on 'google bombing' for some famous examples.

Search google for leave and Disney comes up first. This is rumored to be due to many porn sites giving you the choice of enter or leave and if you don't enter, they send you to Disney. Disney wouldn't see any reason to optimize the page for "leave" but they sure place well for it.

[DerekH]

Deepcreek, one of my tiny sites is a URL forwarder to a free ISP. Nowhere in the URL forwarding are there *any* keywords. It still does very well for these keywords in its (albeit minority) area, based on anchor text (links) alone.
DerekH

[BillyS]

I think the classic example is the query for "click here" which returns a company that is famous for a reader they've created.

[Makaveli]

Type in "miserable failure" in Google and check out what comes up first.

[Robert Charlton]

Type in "miserable failure" in Google and check out what comes up first.

Last time I looked, this worked on all the major engines... so yes, anchor text can do it alone.

But, as your target phrases get more competitive, other factors enter into it, and it's amazing what a little page tuning can do.

There's a great scene in To Have and to Have Not, when Lauren Bacall, after kissing Humphrey Bogart, says to him: "It's even better when you help." It's like that with links too.

[mark1615]

Thanks for the To Have and Have Not quote - good advice from a GREAT movie.