Does text surrounding a link affect SEO? For example, I'm targetting the keyphrase "funny stories". If I'm putting my link in a place that doesn't allow anchor text to be changed or something, and I can just have my regular link, but I surround it with the keyphrase "funny stories", will SEs still count my site as being related to funny stories? If not, I don't care, the links themselves are nice.
100% yes, text surrounding the link is almost as important as the anchor text. Make sure your links are not next to porn links for the very same reason.
Thank you mad4, that's awesome. What's so bad about the pornography? Google penalizes for being near the porno, hardcore and softcore alike?
The text on the whole page counts towards 'neighbourhood'. You want your link to be in a good neighbourhood or the link will not count positively at all. So not only should the link text be related, the whole page should preferably be related to your site topic as well. Assuming your site is not about adult topics, you don't want that text associated with your site. Google assures us links to your site can't hurt you, but for a not so well established site I would not dare take the risk.
Well my site is established so it's all good. And this neighborhood thing is good to know; just another fact to add to my knowledge of SEO.
Kaabi check this search. It shows related sites like aviva directory and kwik goblin which shows that apahcinc has lots of links from the same pages as aviva and kwik goblin. If google was bringing up lots of porn sites then its a bad thing. If a page links to nokia.com and my mobile phone site then this is called co-citation and means google thinks my site must be related to nokia.
I don't think the 'related site' search will do you good (or enough good). Sure if it ends up google feels porn sites are related, you are in trouble. But if google doesn't feel that - its still not a sign links to your site are targeted enough. Like all information google gives webmasters (except for the stuff in their sitemaps), related search is pretty broad and inaccurate. On my site for instance it doesn't seem to know what to do at all - but my site does end up found for plenty of searches.
Co-citation is one of the most important aspects of building backlinks. Having a link to your site next to another relevant site is very helpful in improving your rankings. Thats why links from good directories are useful because the page your site is listed on is usually full of similar sites.
Ahh, that makes sense mad4, about the directory thing. Mad, do you think it's worth it to buy links from paid directories? It just seems like buying a link from an actual website would do better.
I also think that buying links from directories isn't good idea. Rather buy links from relevant sites using direct contact (email).
I guess it depends how much your sites can potentially make. If you spend $100 and it gets you good rankings you can make a lot more in the long run. Some sites I promote earn £ millions every year so submitting to a paid directory isn't really an issue.