Internal Linking Anchor Text - just the keywords or a long phrase?

[kdobson99]

Getting ready to redesign the navigation on a site. Some of the site consists of informational articles about the topic. I am going to link to these articles in two different ways... some of the links will be single sentences in the right column... the other will be introductory paragraphs about the article. So in essence, some are sentences... some are paragraphs. None are 2 or 3 keyword only links.

So... for the "sentence" links, assume my targeted keyword is "buy red widgets"... Which of the following would be better:

Learn How To Buy Red Widgets Online Without Getting Scammed (all words are part of the link)

or

Learn How To Buy Red Widgets Online Without Geting Scammed. (only three words in the link)

As for the paragraph, normally I would use a link at the end of the paragraph for "more...", which is more natural, but should I instead make the anchor text my targeted keywords within the paragraph body also? I assume so, but it's going to look pretty unnatural to do so.

I know the answer is going to be to make the keywords the anchor text... but it just seems people are starting to shift the other way.

Thanks

[bpcombs]

I think linking to "Buy Red Widgets" would be better for both your readers and for the search engines.

[potentialgeek]

The only natural internal linking is complete article or page title set as a link. Part of the title is unnatural; so it "cont..." or "more."

Look at the nytimes.com or news.com or any other major news site, for example. You can still use summary text, like they do, but don't put any links in it.

"Cont" or "more," by the way, is completely redundant. It's tacky. Who needs a link on the last piece of paragraph text, as if you don't know to look for a text link in the paragraph title?

If you absolutely need to shorten a title, keep the start, and truncate the end; don't pick parts in the middle. Besides looking more professional, Google is much less likely to suspect keyword scheming.

p/g

[jimbeetle]

"Cont" or "more," by the way, is completely redundant. It's tacky. Who needs a link on the last piece of paragraph text, as if you don't know to look for a text link in the paragraph title?

Agree with what you said before and after, but not this middle part. Yeah, it's redundant, but from my very informal over-the-shoulder observations I've seen many folks use the cursor to help them read on a screen (as they would a finger skimming across a print page). They really do expect a "more" link at the end of the text.