Internal Anchor Text - Partial or Exact Match Does It Matter?

[AWCthreads]

When linking internally on an ecommerce site between pages and from a sitemap, is partial or exact match on the anchor text a significant factor?

If it matters to Google, which is a better practice to use? I found plenty of info on external links, but precious little on internal links (which suggests it doesn't matter enough to worry about).

[RyanKent]

I agree with EGOL and would add my belief that you should use any text you feel is most beneficial when using internal linking. Generally it will be exact match. I would make no effort to vary the text unless it was helpful for users.

Why? The entire concept of varying anchor text is based on Google knowing that links which are earned naturally are not under your control and therefore the anchor text will vary. Since all the links on your site are 100% under your control, the rules for external links should not apply. Let me clarify this is my logical thinking on the subject and I have no evidence to support this statement, but I do follow it myself.

[EGOL]

I must say that I have spent very little time thinking about this.  I have ecommerce sites and have not spent even one hour trying to get keyword anchor text into them from external sites in the past ten years.

Instead we create content that a few people link to and the links to that content are what power the sites.  Nearly all of those links are followed and nearly all of those links have a domain, a URL, or a brand as the anchor text.

I have read what others say on this topic and people who I trust say that anchor text should be varied across a broad mix of keywords - and that would mean very few exact matches and a lot of partial matches.

[AWCthreads]

I may have overlooked something - but wasn't the experiment referring to external anchor text?

[AWCthreads]

Hi Erica. I checked that out as well as Cyrus' video. I'm curious if exact match for internal and partial match for external is best practice for an ecommerce site.

[EricaMcGillivray]

Check out this post: Which Type of Link Anchor Text is the Most Effective? [An Experiment]

[AWCthreads]

Thanks EGOL. Your thoughts on partial match for external links to ecommerce sites?

[EGOL]

I am very confident that anchor text on internal links passes value to the target page.  It also can add optimization on the host page.

However, on  an ecommerce site I would select internal anchor text that strongly and quickly communicates the destination content to the visitor.

Slap their face with your words....   "Green Widgets"

If you select anchor text that communicates the content of the target page to your visitor as strongly as  a slap on the face then you have at the same time selected anchor text that will help you in the SERPs.