Impact of text in links from other sites...

Is the text link an exact phrase match?

[Phil_AM]

If I have a site www.EXAMPLE.com, and this site sold WIDGETS, which way would google treat my site more favorably in the following situational backlinks (in reagard to se placement):

Backlink 1 - visit www.EXAMPLE.com (whereby www.example.com is the live link)

Backlink 2 - click here to buy WIDGETS (with the entire phrase as the live link)

Backlink 3 - click here to buy WIDGETS (with WIDGETS being the live link)

Now, assuming I'm trying to hone in on the keyword WIDGETS, which one, if any, would be the best way to go about it?

[pleeker]

#3 would be best since WIDGETS is the sole anchor text and you want to target only the word WIDGETS.

If you wanted to target the phrase BUY WIDGETS, which is more specific than just WIDGETS, you'd want that exact phrase as the anchor text. Google does take into account the words in close proximity to the link, but not as strongly as the exact anchor text.

HTH.

[MHes]

Number 3 is obviously the logical choice, but I think if you look at the way sites get naturally linked to, there is a mix. In other words, if you left your site to be linked to naturally, after a year you would probably find 50% of links were "widgets" and the rest a mix of phrases and combinations. That could be what google will like.

[Phil_AM]

Thanks for the reply! That's what I thought, but wasn't sure.

Now another question, do sites with PR's of 0 and 1 hurt or help you when they link to you?

[MHes]

Help you.

Firstly the toolbar means nothing these days, and a pr0 may be a pr3 in reality and even if pr0 may well be pushing good anchor text at your site.

[pleeker]

Since you can't control which other sites link to you, you can't be hurt by incoming links.

(And PR is way overrated anyway....GoogleGuy: "the fact is that PageRank isn't the end-all-be-all of rankings" [webmasterworld.com])

[GravityFree]

I have a theory which I have tested a few times and seems to work. Basically google puts a numberical value on the text in backwards links. Let's say 10 for this example. It then distributes those points amoung the number of words in the link text. So you would get more value out of the last one when it comes to relevence than you would out of an entire string. The last one would be the better target for sure.

As far as links. It never hurts to get links because 1) they might get better rankings and show up later as inbound links 2) they drive traffic to your site.

I would suggest focusing on those with a page rank of 4 or higher to begin. Or those with content relevent to yours. In my opinion URL, page titles and inbound link text are the biggest factors.

I'm in agreement with the pagerank statement above. Lately the toolbar has been off and pagerank is starting to confuse everyone. I would focus on the basics of SEO and give google some months to fix things. I have found odd things lately with my rankings and sites.

[zomega42]

I agree with the suggestions, but in general I think you should really try to get all three if you're running a link campaign. Google doesn't seem to like it when every link to you uses the same anchor text, especially if it's a keyword, because that smells of a spammy link campaign.

[Nuttakorn]

Anchor text should be different in many website. Using it as natural. But sometime , we cannot control them. You have to offer a source code and inform him that shouldn't change any source code.