Anchor Text

I have searched for the answers with no avail, so I will post here as a last resort.
Will these extra punctuation differences affect my rankings?
Anchor Text. or Anchor Text,
Anchor Text. or Anchor Text,

Notice the period and comma are a part of the link.

Please give me your opinion and any documentation, if available.

Thanks, greatly appreciated.

 

I am not sure, and this is but a somewhat educated guess. It seems to me that since Google ignores punctuation, that punctuation would not affect your rankings based on anchor text, which includes it.

Anyone agree or disagree?

 

I do not think it makes a difference, although it might be better without punctuation all together. I only link text usually.

 

I agree that google treats the punctuation as a space. Here is a great discussion about it from webmasterworld.com:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3690425.htm

 

I agree. The only thing I can find that refers to the proper optimization of anchor text that mentions punctuation says to keep it simple, and without unnecessary punctuation.

 

I am sure it wont affect, basically one character doesn't count, but more than one it will for sure so dont worry for a dot or comma dude

 

I agree. Don't worry about grammar

 

I would not worry if its something you can't change although in the future I would go for the pure text without the extra punctuation.

I suggest this because it is more natural and Google is all about natural links.

 

I also agree that you do not need to worry about the dot or comma. The dot and comma thing may be meaningful to the visitors though. So I will make the decision of using a dot or a comma in terms of the visitors rather than SEO in this case.

 

I have the same answer that tara33 has given u thanks.

 

There is no effect in rankings. Search engines look at them as one.

 

Excellent reference on punctuation and keywords, Thx!
A must read for any serious optimization expert.