How to Use Anchor Text in Backlinks - Whose Vote Should Count?
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Because of link exchange and artificial inflation of link popularity, Google does not stop at anchor text when it comes to validating your vote. After you have said you are voting for a site because it is relevant to whatever anchor text you provided, it also examines your website in essence to qualify you to be able to cast this vote. It's kind of like they are asking, “Well, what do you know about the keyword phrase you provided as anchor text anyway?” Google compares your site's theme/content (especially the page you cast the vote from) to the link text you provided to come up with some kind of relevance match. The more relevant the vote you are casting from your site is to your site's content, the more weight they will give to your vote about the subject. Which makes sense because if you have a ton of content about “x” then you must know a lot about “x” so when you vote for someone saying their site is also about “x” that vote should mean something, comparatively you're the expert.
How powerful is anchor text?
Anchor text is so powerful that you do not even have to mention your keyword phrase ANYWHERE on your page, including the header, and with enough votes you can still have first page rankings. Search George Bush's page for “miserable failure” or Delphi.com for the keyword “forums” and you will not see them anywhere; however, if you search Google for those terms you will find that both sites are on the first page of Google for their phrase, respectively, from anchor text alone -- THAT'S how powerful anchor text is.
Why not just get links from anyone?
It could be a long response but it doesn't need to be: Ask yourself, “What does a Viagra site know about real estate? Or a casino know about boat oars?” Based on an evaluation of their content, absolutely nothing. So why should their vote count? It shouldn't, there is no reason (other than artificial inflation of link popularity) for that link vote to be cast. If it is that easy for us to see, then don't you think the PhD's at Google could figure it out?
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