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The keyword in your domain won't really add much because of the anchor text itself, if that's what you're inferring. The link's placement and relevance is the more important factor, always. Even if they did, the last thing you want is a keyword-heavy anchor text profile... That's the short version of the way I see it. Anyway I guess I still don't understand what you're asking in this topic. In the original post you mentioned that the "franchisor will not allow the keyword-domain.com to be their primary domain." But then you said people will be landing on keyword-domain.com? So is it the other way around? the franchise-name.com will be redirecting to keyword-domain.com? If this is the case, have at it! I guess what I'm saying is I advise against building links to the domain that's being redirected and instead all links should be built to the final destination. But it sounds like that's what you are doing. Forgive my confusion here, I've had a stuffed head all week! Yeah I don't love exact match domains and I can all but guarantee their effectiveness will be going away. Google has addressed this multiple times publicly and made no effort to conceal the fact.. Nonetheless I think the most important factor is the quality of the site's content and the authority/relevance of the links coming in. I wish you luck!

This issue that you're facing is quite common with franchise related websites as they follow one master template and just some localized content changes on each of the franchisee sites. Each of the individual franchisee sites should invest in original content that separates it from the corporate site. Just having a 5% difference in content will not suffice and will do harm sooner or later. A really good discussion on this topic in this Link