Hi all, I just want to make sure I understand this correctly... A backlink only boosts your PageRank for the keywords inside the link itself. Example is a link to a website with the text-phrase "Cheap Shoes" The above will only boost that website's rank for the keyword phrase "Cheap Shoes" and nothing else, correct? I only ask because my main competition has over 19,000 backlinks to his website, all 19,000 using his website's address as the text-phrase used in the links. This would only boost his PageRank for his website's name, and nothing else, correct? If so, IT'S MY LUCKY DAY!
It would be better if one can allocate a certain number between using keywords and web address for the backlinks but not entirely all just for web address only.
No, a backlink boosts your Pagerank because it's a backlink. Keywords play no role in the Pagerank algorithm. As for your question, again no. "Cheap Shoes" anchor text would push value to other keywords and phrases like "Buy Cheap Shoes", "Cheap Shoes Online", etc. It just doesn't pass "as" much value.
No, it's easy. They made a mistake. If you use the proper SEOed link format, you will not need that many links to beat them. Use the following format: < a href="http://www.mysite.com/" title="Targeted keyword phrase">Targeted keyword phrase</a> If the link is placed in "copy", make sure that it is inside the copy that is related to the keywords. If it is a Inbound Link from a Forum, etc. , make sure that the keyword phrase matches the page's title.
catanich is right, you should be able to beat them fairly easily using good keywords in your links. A link with just your domain name as the anchor text is not as powerful as a link with your keywords in it. Both types of links boost your domain's overall authority, but a keyword link also gives you an extra boost for that keyword. If you have enough quality links with just your domain as the anchor text, you could still rank well for the keywords that the site itself is optimized for.
No, more backlinks you will get, it slowly makes the site better in Google eyes, making the site authority and this will make overall pages to start ranking high. If the page is www.example.com/shoes/nike-shoe-reviews , the backlink will show effect on all levels, though very small...
Thanks for the help! I have one more question My competition's backlinks all basically come from one daily news website (the websites layout has a column that lists resource websites, and it's not a high PR website), so he literally is on every indexed page of that website (over 17,000 pages). So my question is, does every link to his website have the same weight or does Google deflate the value because he is on every single web page of that website? Thanks for the help guys, for a second there it was looking like there was little hope of beating him anytime soon.