filters. fact or fiction?

[hawkwind dave]

Hi All,

I've just been reading this article http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google/Go...their-Screens/
which raised a few questions, especialy with this statement, "use of identical link anchor text on all of your site's incoming links". This has been raised before here at WPW, I can't remember who said it, but companies such as Ford, Mercedes, & Apple would be hammered if such a filter existed.

Also, the article also mentions that 'links.htm' may be a possible trigger for these 'filters'. I also read something similar to this at WPW today, about replacing the links page with a directory. (is this necessary, or just an option?)

I'm no SEO expert (8 month newbie) and I'm not knocking the article, in the words of Brittany/monty "this calls for immediate discussion".

[ECommerceConversions]

I've only read speculation on that. I make my links and nearby text vary somewhat while keeping the keywords. I have yet to see a study that supports it, but in a way, such a filter would make sense. I'm sure somebody else around here might now of a site that had that problem?

My speculation: same anchor text over and over causes each individual inbound link to slightly reduce in either PR Value or Rank itself. Even though many people link to Apple, each link is worth very little because it exists everywhere, but since there are a ton of links anyway, it doesn't hurt them. But that's just my theory. It would make sense that way

[cbp]

Filters = fiction.

Google ranks sites higher or lower based on a number of factors, including quality signals. If you want to play semantics, then maybe some would call this a filter - I wouldn't.

As for the anchor text - one of my sites is numero uno in Google and Yahoo and MSN and all the others for its keywords (which happen to be the sites name) - and guess what .... every single link to the site has the same anchor text .... no sign of a penalty or filter there.

CBP

[ECommerceConversions]

Hey CBP, what's your anchor text?

Oh, and do you believe in the relevancy argument about how links have to come from relevant pages?

[cbp]

do you believe in the relevancy argument about how links have to come from relevant pages?

No.

All links help with PR (ie importance).
Anchor text links help with relevance.
Links from 'relevant pages' help more than links from 'non relevant pages' (ie relevance), but links from 'non relevant pages' still help (ie importance).

Hypothetically and conceptually, ranking = importance x relevance .... IMHO

CBP

[Dave Hawley]

Filters = fiction

Totally agree! To "Filter" anything it has to be there to start with.