I'm glad you supplied a definition for "link popularity" because I wasn't sure what you were talking about. In my opinion, and talking about Google only, the only thing a link with unrelated anchor text contributes to is the PR of the page. PR is mathematical number generated from all the backlinks to a page and is calculate totally independent of theme, anchor text or anything semantical. Many of us believe that PR plays a very little part in a page's SERP placement. So this being the case "link popularity" as a value has very little to do with SERP placement.
I see where your coming from compar. Perhaps to further discuss what I'm trying to emphasise, take the DP forums as an example. What would explain the reasoning for this forum having various first page rankings for unrelated search terms found in the many forum posts. That has nothing to do with themed linking as I'm sure you would agree, as there wouldnt be any direct links to particular posts (no optimised links anyway). One could perhaps assume because DP would be considered authorative (due to it's massive link popularity) it would give reason for ranking so well for unrelated search terms.
Can you give us an example of a specific SERP placement like you describe? It's not that I doubt you it's just that I'm not sure I entirely understand the situation you describe. However if I do understand it I would say that it must be based on content. For very competitive keyword phrases content is generally not enough to place well in the SERPs, but a keyword in a given thread in the forum may be repeated many times and so one could argue that the content has been optimized for that keyword phrase or search term. That is the other reason I'd like to see an example so as to gage how competitive the keyword phrase is.
I just did a search on Google for 'red rep'. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLC,GGLC:1969-53,GGLC:en&q=red+rep A page from DP comes up # 4 in the SERP. But that page has 0 PR and has no reported backlink. So it can only be explained based on content and the relatively uncompetitive nature of the search term. BTW this raises another issue. A lot of people think the number of pages returned by Google for a search term is the measure of the competitiveness of the search term. I've never agreed with that and this search is a case in point. The search for red rep returns 14 million pages.
a search for "red rep" (in quotes) is a much better indicator of the competitiveness. Allinanchor:"red rep" is even better.
That was a great example you gave compar and highlights what I was trying to say. I'm sure I could dig up hundreds of those if I had the time. Doing an allinanchor search of "red rep" http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-28,GGLG:en&q=allinanchor:red+rep you will note DP doesnt get listed on the first page, yet ranks on the first page of the SERPS. Even though its an uncompetitive phrase, surely pages with themed links should outrank the DP thread you would think? But due to the threads good keyword density and the massive link popularity of the domain, it smashes the opposition.
if you put quotes around it, it does rank in the top 10. I also think that is the proper form as well
I agree with that. Only 15,200 pages for a search on "red rep", but that specific is rarely mentioned by the people talking about gaging competitiveness from the number of pages returned for a search. I always think the that the number of search per day as shown by Shawn's keyword suggestion tool is a better gage. Web masters have known how to use Wordtracker or Overture for years and they are all chasing the search terms with the high daily usage.
Oh ok, thanks for the heads up I never previously used quotes with allinanchor searches. The result that comes up for DP in the search is not the page that ranks though.
The problem I have with your conclusion is that it is not sites that rank in the SERPs it is pages. So you can't, in my opinion make judgements about a pages placement based on the site it is part of. I think every page stand on it's own. and the page that shows up in the red rep search can only be there as a result of the "optimized" content.
That doesn't make any sense at all. Google doesn't report a single backlink to the page. So if there are no links how can there be any occurrences of the term in anchor text?
I wouldn't agree that "massive link popularity" is a major factor in what might be considered an authoritative site. As I mentioned before it's about quality not quantity...even a small site with few inbound links can build authority and weight with age and correct on-page optimization. One of my sites has less than a hundred inbound links, but I can throw up a new page and have it rank well for noncompetitive keywords pretty quickly.
That is a great example 'Red Rep'. Maybe just popularity (page views and traffic) is also a factor . I have been involved in threads here that become ranked #1 in less that 24 hours. Does popularity of a thread/ forum also contribute to SERPS I wonder?
Google must understand related sites somehow. How does it manage to give related adsense ads otherwise?