How does Google Count Keywords in On-page Links?

[AlmostHuman]

Here is the deal.

Say, I have a page with a content on it. A part of the content are links which point to other pages of the website.

Now, what I am wondering about is whether Google counts the keywords found in the anchors of the on-page links as ones that describe the content of the page itself. Does it perceptive them (keywords in the anchors) the same way it does any other words in the body of a page or maybe it attributes less value to such keywords/doesn't attribute any value at all.

You see, the logic is, since those are keywords in the anchors of links, they better describe the content of the page the links points to and doesn't necessary describe the content of the page the link is placed on.

I can clearly see that the keywords in the anchors are searchable, but what still remains to be figured is whether they have the same weight as any other keywords.

I hope I was clear enough.

[tedster]

Hello, and welcome to the forums.

Yes, in my experience Google does count the anchor text in an internal link as being some indication of the topic of the linking page itself - when that link is in the content area and not navigational. In fact, it sometimes seems to me that it increases the value of that anchor text.

I do know that when the home page ranks for a keyword rather - than an internal page that would be better - I've been able to bring about a change by changing the home page anchor.

[edited by: tedster at 2:06 pm (utc) on May 29, 2013]

[jakebohall]

Agree with Tedster here...

If the keyword/anchor is not within the navigation, it should be an indicator of the topic or context of the linking page... otherwise it would just be a random link on the page.

[AlmostHuman]

I am still not positive on what Google considers to be a navigational link.

I have a situation that doesn't allow me to think one way or the other - it's not a navigational panel, but it's definitely a list of links pointing to internal pages of the website.

I take it by "content links" we are speaking of links which are placed in some text and surrounded by it. I have a case where links just styled as a list.