Anchor Text Opinion Needed

any advice on this question would be appreciated.
we sell 2 main types of widgets. should our anchor text be:

Discount Red Widgets and Blue Widgets
or
Discount Red and Blue Widgets

searches for both "red widgets" and for "blue widgets" are very popular, so i thought it would be better to keep the words grouped together. however, i am not sure if duplicating the word "widget" will cause some sort of penalty.

thank you in advance for your advice.

-Scott

Use "Discount Red Widgets and Blue Widgets"

thanks deja.

Why not "discount red & blue widgets"

Because if you set up the phrase as you've asked about ther you'll miss out on a lot of traffic for "red widgets" because this isn't seen as a keyword phrase. It'll still recognise that it's got both keywords in the anchor text, but when they aren't together they won't be considered to be as relevant to the search.

So, for this, using "red widgets and blue widgets" would definately be the better idea.

hmmm.... I have used this method... red widgets and blue widgets

IMO this works better for on-page... and I would be sure to have separate pages for red and blue.

Agree with Catacaustic. Use the longer version. Of course if your keyphrase includes the 'discount' word then perhaps you should use "discount red widgets and discount blue widgets".

I would favor Egol's strategy over the "all in one" for several reasons. One of which is because of my theory that I am reprinting below:

My old thinking was that Google looks at an achor text like Blue Widgets in Ireland and assigns a "percentage of weight" to each individual word. The wild card in this example of course is how Google treats words like in, for, and which it says it does not include in searches (this would be a whole another post as Google does not in fact omit those words).

If this was true it would seem that you would rank the same for phrases like "Widgets Blue in Ireland", "Ireland in Blue Widgets", etc but that is not the case. This is the first indicator that Google does not simply disperse the weight throughout.

It is now my theory that Google has a two tier system for assigning weight. The first is to assign a percentage to the anchor text as a whole and THEN to divide the remaining weight amongst the individual words INCLUDING and, in, or, etc.

Something like this:

Blue Widgets in Ireland gets 72% of the weight while:
Blue 7%
Widgets 7%
in 7%
Ireland 7%

What further backs this up is the second thing I have found in analyzing my anchor texts and Digital Point. Consider this example:

I have used two phrases: Blue Widgets and Ice Cream UK
I have not used the exact phrase: Blue Widgets UK

I am #1 for Ice Cream UK
I am #100 for Blue Widgets ( a more competetive phrase with no "qualifier"
I am #800 for Blue Widgets UK

This makes no logical sense if you believe that Google gives a equal percentage to each of the words in an anchor text because adding a qualifier during a search would ALWAYS make you rank higher. After all that qualifier just adds a couple percentage points, right?

This further reinforces my other theory about rotating the Anchor Text you use because of the bonus you apparently get from using an "Exact" phrase. Those who always use the same anchor text will assure a strong rating for that phrase but diversity in your targeting keywords is a MUST for a long term strategy.

If anyone has any tests or proof that disproves this, I would love to hear it as that is the only way to be sure.

Some of the answer depends where your site sits now versus competitors. If you are working hard to catch up to competitors pick one of the suggestions and hammer on it on all backlinks. If you can do a page for each separate them. Also check your logs to see how searchers reach your site. There may be some easier phrases that can get you to the top.

I don't know exactly how google does this, but the vast majority of our anchor text is keyword1 keyword2. Regardless we are ranked 9th in allinachor for keyword1 and I doubt we have a single page with that alone as anchor text.