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I always try to strive for getting good anchortext in links that people link to my sites with, but sometimes they are not very web savvy, or just plain not willing to format the link the way i want it and we end up with links that use the URL as the anchortext.

My question is, if i format a url such that it has keywords in it, and when someone makes a link like this:

http://www.storwell.com/self-storage-toronto-bursary-application-form.php

does google consider the words: storwell, self, storage, toronto, bursary, application & form as the anchor text?

I believe there are two many other factors that are possible that could have prevented that test from being accurate.  How do you know 100% for sure that there are no variables you are overlooking?

I was just wondering if someone could point out to me any known differences between these three search engines.  I feel like i have been spending a lot of time optimizing for google, but don't have much of an idea of how to optimize for yahoo or bing.  Do you have any up-to date article links or tips/advice?

It seems like a lot of our competators are getting lots of link juice from fake/spammy looking articles on squido.  Is it worth the effort to make these articles and add links to them, or is google smarter than that?

Example here: http://www.squidoo.com/selfstoragesmyrnatn

links to: www.migsonstorage.com who seems to be doing pretty good according to OSE with a PA of 63 and a DA of 56

Hi Nick,

Thanks for taking your time to help us.  Our website is www.storwell.com
We have a domain authority of 37, and a page authority of 42.

On the first page of listings for the keyword "self storage toronto" in google.ca we get:
Rank - website - PA - DA
#1 - www.canada-storage.com 45/100     35/100
#2 - www.publicstoragecanada.com 34/100     34/100
#3 - www.migsonstorage.com/ 63/100     56/100
#4 - www.spacestoronto.com/ 34/100     23/100
#5 - www.applestorage.com 38/100     26/100
#6 - www.ulockitministorage.com/
#7 - spadinaqueen.com/
-------- end google places block ---- begin organic search results
#8 - www.jiffystorage.com/
#9 - www.selfstor.ca/
#10 - www.centronstorage.com/
#11 - ME! www.storwell.com/

If you continue into just the google places / google local search results you find us eventually at
#70 - www.storwell.com/toronto-self-storage

Could it be because we have listed out website as www.storwell.com/toronto-self-storage in google places instead of listing it as www.storwell.com?
We have three locations, with three google places accounts so i had put:
www.storwell.com/toronto-self-storage
www.storwell.com/mississauga-self-storage
www.storwell.com/scarborough-self-storage
for each one of the locations in google places as the web address.
Would it be better to just list www.storwell.com as the web address for each of the places accounts?

Thanks Nick,

I understand this, and we actually have been working quite heavily on increasing our page authority and domain authority.  I feel we've come quite a long way and we actually ahve higher domain and page authority than most of the sites ranking on the 1st page of google places for the search term "self storage toronto" but for some reason we are burried waaaaay down on the 7th page amungst many other sites which have incomplete google places pages, and very very poor domain and page authority.

The only thing i can tell is that it seems google will either choose to rank you well in the organic block or the places block. and if you rank well in one you don't rank well in the other.  I just want to understand how we can get it to rank us well in the places block instead of ranking us #2 in the organic block, which is actually below the places block.

We have 3 seperate locations with 3 seperate google places location pages.  Are you saying that these should all be just one page?  I don't see any duplicates other than those three locations pages, link?

Hi Joel,

That is funny because yesterday it was 100% complete.  I just took a look at it again today and yet again google places had erased all my categories.  I was fully aware of being 100% complete and having the place claimed.  We have done both of those things months ago, yet we are still consistantly outranked by less complete google places with less citations, less reviews, and less page authority.

I think there is something else going on here, something bigger than just what you are suggesting, i would appreciate if anyone else has any other ideas!?

I am having a hard time understanding why we are ranking so poorly for the keyword search "self storage toronto" on google.ca

We have claimed our places page, and we have 38 citations and 9 reviews.  Yet for some reason we are burried 7 pages into the places pages results way below other places pages that have far lower page authority, domain authority, and less citations and reviews on their places page.

I just can't understand what we are doing wrong / overlooking.

Any ideas?

Here's the places page i am referring too:

http://maps.google.ca/maps/place?hl=en&ie=UTF8&q=storwell&fb=1&gl=ca&hq=storwell&cid=3009236871758088464&z=14

We do happen to land very high in the organic results for the same keyword, infact we are on the first page but why is google not giving us any love in places?