Google and External Anchors

[Net Wizard]

How crucial is it, you decide.

Here's what I've observed on a single page

example only:
external anchors: Software & Computer Products
internal anchors: Software & Computer Products
page title: Software & Computer Products
Result
Actual Serp: Software & Computer Products - #1
Allinxxxxx: Software & Computer Products - #1

As it turns out I have the phrase reverse, the popular one is 'Computer & Software Products' needless to say I changed the following.

Page Title: Computer & Software Products
Internal Anchors: Computer & Software Products
External Anchors: remain the same
Result
Allinxxxxx: Computer & Software Products - #2
Actual Serp: Software & Computer Products - #4
Actual Serp: Computer & Software Products - #150+

Note: This is the same page, the number of backlinks are the same, the text are the same, technically, the condition are equal.

My assumption: since I rank #2 in all 'allinxxxx' operator, I expect that at least I would be in the top 10. In essence, since there is a 'very minor' changes the ranking wouldn't be impacted that much.

The exact words or wordings were not change 'except for the order' in the Title and Internal Anchors.

Note the Allinxxxx: result above, I'm #2 in ALL of them reflecting minor change in title, texts, anchors and urls. Reflecting also the competitiveness of the exact term.

But, I dropped like a bomb in the actual serp going down to 150, the only reason I can see since everything else are equal...is the "order" of my primary keywords in the external anchors.

I believe that order and even positioning of your keywords is important in your external anchors BUT not this important that it is almost a major factor in determining your ranking at Google.

Do you believe that the order of keywords in the external anchors has a very high weight in Google's algo?

What do you think?

[qwerty]

I think that having the exact phrase as anchor text gives you a huge boost. My question would be which of the following would be better, as far as coming in second to all of the words in the exact order:

1. all the words of the exact phrase, but in a different order, or
2. some of the words of the exact phrase, but in the exact order.

[Net Wizard]

Good question and pretty tricky.

Without seeing an actual comparable condition(not yet anyway) I believe that the #1 condition has a better chance in ranking than the #2 condition assuming of course that everything else is equal.

Just like my situation above...

If the external anchors say is "Software & Computer" then the question would be...

Would I still be #1 for 'Software & Computer Products' if I didn't make any internal changes?

On the other hand, my external anchors say "Software & Computer Products" (not in exact order because of my internal changes)...

I did still rank at #4 for 'Software & Computer Products' even though my internals are now 'Computer & Softwares Products'

So, I would say that external anchors "Software & Computer" alone with no internal changes on my part would have a hard time to beat the ranking result of the inexact order external anchors.

But, I'll poke around if I could see 'actual' comparables.

Cheers

[Bernard]

I'm guessing that the revised phrase is more competitive? Did you use the phrase in the body of the page?

There are too many variables to proclaim the external anchor text the sole determining factor in your SERP.

It is also possible that if you do not do a single thing to your site, it will slowly rise in the rankings over time. I have noticed this effect for some of my sites.

[Net Wizard]

Did you use the phrase in the body of the page?

Sorry, I neglect to mention that as well. Yes, I changed the order in the body as well.

I'm guessing that the revised phrase is more competitive?

According to 'Allinxxx:' I'm #2 in all aspect including 'Allinanchor:Computer & Software Products' though I don't expect to be #2 but at least not far from there.

To point it further to the external anchor as the possible culprit...

I just did a query which both are competitive according to the size of the index

Queries: (sample only)
software and computer - Top 50 out of 4,750,000
computer and software - 0 out of 4,770,000

I mean come-on, I have the 'Computer & Software' in the Title, anchors, texts, and URLs...I don't show up for 'computer and software' but I'm in the top 50 for 'software and computer'?

What else do you think is affecting the result aside from the external links?

Perhaps, the other pages are more better optimized than mine for the term 'computer and software'? Browsing through the serps for 'computer and software', I don't see any evidenced of pages that are aggressively SEO'd.

So, I went hunting for worst pages...I don't have to go real deep to find pages with hardly any content, low PR, 1 or 2 backlinks from so-so sites. Aside of course for the term 'computer and software' are in their pages whether in the title or h1 or in the body...the external anchors 'does' show 'computer and software' in that exact order regardless of the length of the anchor.

[Bernard]

How long ago did you make the changes?

[Net Wizard]

This page is crawled every other day or sometimes daily and I changed the order of the phrase in all attributes about a month ago.

After, it was crawled and start apprearing in the serp as evidenced by the fresh tag...the ranking have changed. As if the link from the home page has no effect and in spite of the gradual changes in other internal pages reflecting the new anchor....there is no improvement as evidenced by the query 'computer and software' but slight movement for 'software and computer' to the minus side as more and more internal pages changes their anchor in regards to this page.

But, the negative movement is insignificant that it's not really worth worrying about as if the impact of those internal anchors are negligible.

As I have posted before...the page used to be #1 for 'Software and Computer Products' after the change in internal anchors and title, the page is still holding #4 for 'Software and Computer Products' and no changes on the rankings of other sites.

Site #1 - #3 now used to be #2- #4 respectively....so, it's me who is moving and not them

[joker]

I think that having the exact phrase as anchor text gives you a huge boost.

IMO, it's very doubtfull. I think only variety of different links anchors will result in huge boost

[Bernard]

NW, based upon what you've written, I'd say your conclusion has merit. It would be interesting to see if your positioning in the new SERP remains relatively stable over a few months or slowly rises without further changes (but that is probably not practical).

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums joker!