I think I may be into an area where solid information is hard to come by, but I have to ask before I start building more links. For the sake of this thread my main keyword is "Test" , when building back links to a site I assume Test Would be the best option but what about anchors like Test? Test! Test... Do these variations still provide the same value for "Test" as the word by itself ? My other related question is if the domain I am using for the site is actually Test.com would it hold the same value linking to it with Test.com http://test.com and Test ?
Adding punctuation probably wouldn't help your links at all. You would be better off using synonyms or actually variations of the word...ie: test, testing, etc Using a keywords on their own should have more value than linking using 'test.com' or 'http://test.com'. When you add the extra .com stuff the search engines may not pick up the keywords.
Blueribbon is correct. You should have variations of your keyword pointing to your site, especially if you are building your links yourself and not naturally. If you were to build links to your site that were all Test, then that would have a high chance of being filtered for unnatural link building. When you use variations of the keyword then it looks more natural to the search engines and allows you to rank better for your main keyword as well as variations of your keyword which sometimes can be very successful as well! Good Luck!