Links and keywords

[Vetshopgroup]

A rather simple question, If i have a  paragraph and have the words cat, dog and bird would it be a good idea to have them all linking to the same url? or is better to have them all going to different urls?

[Francisco_Meza]

Only the 1st URL will count. So if you link to example.com using anchor text "cat", then dog and bird won't matter.

[seoug_2005]

"Only the 1st URL will count"

Do you mean only the first link will count ?

Will Google follow other links ?

[Francisco_Meza]

Yes, here is my technical answer:

[Dog](www.example.com>Cat</a> (1st link)</p>
<p><a href=) (2nd link)

[seoug_2005]

Thanks for technical answer.

So, the anchor text  "cat"  will have value, as far as ranking for destination URL is concerned.

[Francisco_Meza]

In this case, example.com would get credit for "cat", but not for "dog" nor "bird".

[seoug_2005]

Thanks a lot.

[irvingw]

do you have any evidence to that effect? I am doubting that. Google should follow all three links and should show the anchor texts on your site in GMT as well.

It is quite possible that an about us page has 5 links to the same page with different peoples names as anchor texts (using hash tag to point to the proper section in the page) why would Google not be interested in gathering that information about what exactly the page is about.

[Francisco_Meza]

Hestates "If i have a  paragraph and have the words cat, dog and bird". This means it's coming from the same URL. example.com/source-page. I'm not stating Google won't follow the links, I am saying that link #2 and link #3 won't weigh b/c link #1 comes 1st in the source code. Rand wrote about this long ago, but I don't want to spend 10 minutes looking for proof.

Are you referring to using Hash Tags on Twitter? Are you referring to # as in my FAQ page when you hover over a question? If so, I never see them in SERPs.

I doubt Atul is trying to accomplish the hash tag thing.

[ShaMenz]

There has been quite a bit of experimentation which indicates that the "First link counts rule" does not hold in certain situations.

This Youmoz post gives a good explanation - Exceptions to the First Link Counts Rule

Hope that helps,

Sha