The other day, I logged into my Google Webmaster account to look at the "What Google sees" section, where it shows the anchor link text pointing back to your site. I noticed that I had about 12 links pointing to my site with worthless gibberish terms. Is this an attempt by a competitor to de-rank my site, or mess with its current keyword standings? I'm not sure how to figure out what sites they come from.
You see 12 links but can't figure out what sites they come from? I'm confused. Check your backlinks in Yahoo Explorer. If the anchor text is offensive (adult, gambling maybe) it might be your competitor. But 12 backlinks won't make any difference especially if your site is old & established.
No, it is china's character set that is showing up. And any link from anywhere that is in WMT is good.
Yeah just 12 links shouldn't make a difference whether they had malicious intent or not. I would only be worried if it was dozens or hundreds of weird links. If it realyl is just chinese characters as catanich suggested, then it shouldn't be anything to worry about.