Anyway, it should be ignored by Google etc… since alt attribute text is only meant to be associated with images.

I’ve added a quick test to this page, I’ve added unique text into a new alt attribute of a text link (so not associated with an image). The text link is close to the top of the page with anchor text “Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)”.

As long as no one links to this page with the unique text I added to the alt attribute it will remain a valid test (I’ll setup a secret one somewhere as well). Obviously I can’t write the made up word here as it will invalidate the test (view source to see it).

Give it a little time for the page to be reindexed (check the cache for the date) and if that made up word doesn’t show up as a search result for this page it confirms Google ignores it.

If it does count alt text within a text link I’d be very careful using it as Google will treat it as hidden text as it does not show up as a tool tip** on text links.

** The title attribute (title=”keywords”) added to text links is for tool tips and the content is ignored by Google. I expect Google has already taken this into account, but you never know for sure until you test it

David

What about using an alt=”" tag on anchor text?

From your example (I added an alt tag to your Anchor Text):

……links to our home page (http://www.seo-gold.com/) with the anchor text SEO Gold-

SEO Gold

The HTML code for which is-

<a href=”http://www.seo-gold.com/” alt=”SEO Gold”>SEO Gold</a>

Excuse me if this is stupid, still learning. Have to say though I am smarter after reading your articles.

Cheers

Rick

Thanks for the answer.

John.

If you got a link from Google’s home page (PR10) you’d get a CRAP load of link benefit, this would flow through your site and boost all your on page SEO. there was an example of a blogger who got a great link from Google and he took loads of SERPs completely unrelated to the anchor text within the link!

Add to this that internal links with good anchor text are treated no different to incoming links with good anchor text, if most of your internal links to your Corvettes page used the keyword Corvettes as anchor text they would boost that page for that SERP. Most of my rankings are based on this type of SEO, internal links are so undervalued in the SEO industry.

That being said the ideal situation is all your incoming links and internal links have great anchor text, because it does add to the sites overall rankings. You’d get more from a link with good anchor text (you get the link benefit boost AND the anchor text benefit boost) than one with poor anchor text (just get the link benefit boost).

The link benefit boost is far more important than the anchor text boost from a link. I’d take one link from the home page of Google with anchor text “Click Here” over 1,000 links from PR5 home pages with great anchor text from related sites. Imagine what you could do with all that link benefit from a Google home page link (drool ).

David

Lets say I own website dedicated to Corvettes, and a friend linked from his site with an anchor text “Johnathan’s site” or “Johnathan Mayer’s cars”, without Corvettes word.
Friend’s website PR that he left my link is really high.

My question: does this will give any ranking value for my site? Let’s say that my onpage seo is optimized for Corvettes.

Is related anchor text from high PR sites is so critical important? I mean if a link don’t have a word Corvettes that mean I won’t get any seo value by ranking for Corvettes word (even if it’s optimized for)?

Johny.

I’ve updated the tests now, so give it a few days and they’ll be valid again (unless Google’s changed ).

BTW there is supposed to be only one listing in the title attribute text search, this page uses that exact text remember.

David