: How Do Search Engines Rank Combined Keywords? Suppose: A site that ranks very well (1st result) for something like 'best blue widget'. It also ranks very well (1st page) for 'blue widget'. It

@RJPawlick198

A couple of things you need to take into account.


Google has reduced the value of anchor text for SEO so it isn't as important as it once was exactly because people are trying to game it.
Number of searches and click throughs per keyword doesn't necessarily mean anything. For example if visitors searching for "widget" have an 80% bounce rate on your site, visitors searching for "blue widget" have a 40% bounce rate, and visitors searching for "best blue widget" have a 10% bounce rate then you will need to get almost 5 times more visitors increasing your SERPs click through for "widget" than you will for increasing your SERPs click through for "best blue widget". That becomes especially true for Adwords keyword phrases because you are paying for those clicks. I would argue though that you are paying for your natural SERPs clicks indirectly with effort and time expended. In which case going after "widgets" most likely has the lowest value.


That being said, @JohnConde is right. There are a lot of things to take into account, like the site the link is on, etc.

If everything is the "same" for the value of the site the back link is coming from then the answer straightforward. Anchor text of "blue widget" will help "blue widget" searches and "widget" searches but not as much as it helped "blue widget". For the phrase "Best blue widget" it will help the exact match the most, "blue widget" the second most and "widget" the least. How much of a difference it makes for each of these is only known by Google but I would but the value of non exact matches drops of pretty significantly.

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@Pope3001725

Hint: The answer won't be in a 3x3 table because it's not that cut and dry :)

The more words in an external link the less targeted that link is for for each word individually. So having a link that just says "widget" will help you rank better "widget" then an external link that contains the phrase "best blue widget". But both will help you as they both contain the keyword "widget".

You also have to remember that the keywords in the link are just part if that link's value. A link from a widget manufacturing website with the anchor text of "best blue widget" will do more to help you rank well for "widget" then a link from a Britney Spears website that links to you with only the word "widget" in it. This is because links from related sites are much more valuable then links from unrelated sites. Additionally, links from higher ranked pages for "widgets" will carry more weight then links from poorly ranked sites for the same term. So two links with the same anchor text can carry dramatically different weight.

If your goal is to ultimately rank well for "widget" I would start by targeting longer tail keywords like "best blue widget" first. Since it's easier to rank well for those terms you can achieve a level of success sooner. This will raise your visibility to other widget related websites from which you can attempt to get more generic links from that contains words like "blue widget" and just "widget". If you aim for "widget" right from the get go it could be a long term before you see the fruits of efforts.

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