How Can Google tell, if a anchor text is exact match

[PeterRota]

So, I was thinking to myself today. Couldn't Google say everything is an exact match anchor text in reality? Such as, Hyundai in Boston, Or cars in boston? I'm just concerned, that's all. Thanks for your help.

[MattAntonino]

Generally speaking, if you're concerned with anchor text because you control it, those are the wrong links to be building.

Exact match anchor text depends on whether your anchors match each other for your target keywords.  If you have 100 links and 90 say "cars in Boston" you're going to take a beating.  If 5 are "cars in boston" and 5 are "boston cars" and 3 are "Hyundai Boston" and another 10 are your brand?  Not so much, really.  You can also build partial match links.

Read this: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beyond-exact-match-anchor-text-to-next-generation-link-signals-whiteboard-friday

and this: http://www.webmarketinggroup.co.uk/Blog/the-truth-about-exact-match-anchor-text-1760.aspx

Hope that helps!

[PeterRota]

So, generally speaking, Google will consider something an exact match anchor text, if it's over a certain threshold?

[MattAntonino]

It depends on what the user's search is.

If a user searches "cars in boston" and you have a massive amount of anchors to "cars in boston" that page isn't necessarily going to benefit from those anchors, at least nowhere near as much as they used to.

I think Cyrus' WBF and the other link both should give you some idea though. Don't control anchors. That's 2013.

[ProjectLabs]

They could identify if there is a higher than average number of anchor text links with specific keyword phrases. If your distribution of anchor text is very different than the average site in that niche it would be detectable.