Question regarding back link analysis and anchor text

[87ROB]

Hello,

I am looking at my competitors back link analysis and comparing a range of link based metrics from the top 10 SERPS. I am then putting this data into excel and comparing our back link profiles.

When looking at the anchor text distribution i am not sure whether to look at exact match anchor or phrase match anchor. For example, one of the companies I am looking at holds positions 3 and 4 in the SERPS. Looking at their linking profile I can see that only 1.7% of their links use the exact match anchor 'widget'.

Looking at their phrase match anchor is an entirely different story, 93.5% of anchor links contain 'widget' somewhere. i.e. 'cheap widgets', 'widget sale', 'buy widgets at www.examplewidget.co.uk' etc.

Obviously their exact match and phrase match anchor distribution tell a completely different story. THIS IS TRUE FOR MANY OF THE TOP 10 SERPS. Therefore, should I be looking at phrase match anchors instead of exact?

Side note: would people recommend targeting anchors with 'brandname widget' based on predictions of Google giving weighted anchor more weight.

Robert.

[Getz.pro]

As with the panel, I would look at phrase also. Exact is too narrow, and you never want to get all your anchor as exact anyway as this looks a bit manipulated.

Put those broad phrases into Google's keyword tools and see where the most hits comes from and move forward from there.

[Dan-Petrovic]

Observe your natural link profile and you will notice people don't always choose to use exact match anchor text - in fact that's pretty rare when it happens. Google knows this and if you stick to an exact match you will create a suspicious backlink profile which would bite you back later on. My recommendation is to diversify anchor text and mix it with brand and variation of the phrase.

Example:

exact match
brand exact match
exact match brand
partial match
exact match: www. url. com

etc.

[oneticsoft]

You shuld try to match phrase.