Though i do differ on one little thing. You mentioned that since Blogging tips was getting links with blogging tip as an anchor text in them, that was why they were ranking, course that and the words being in the url and content.

True but say that they weren’t getting links with blogging tips in the anchor and had the same domain name. I think they would have been still pretty strong for this keyword solely on the basis of it being in the anchor text and in the content. Probably still above Prp Blogger

I think people underestimate how important it is to have the keywords in the anchor text.

You have touched upon some interesting points though. It doesn’t surprise me that I am above ProBlogger as the biggest factors in ranking are domain name and anchor text. The keyword ‘Blogging Tips’ is my domain name therefore that carries a lot of weight. However, most people link to me using that anchor text too so that helps greatly as well.

You also have to bear in mind that Darren Rowse isn’t actively targeting that keyword so it’s actually quite impressive that he ranks so high for it. There are some other blogs which are targeting this keyword actively via anchor text in their incoming links and are not placed as high (for example blogsessive.com/).

For most other competitive keywords ProBlogger will know doubt rank much much higher than Bloggingtips.com because it is a higher traffic site and in most cases, gets more incoming links (ie. pingbacks etc).

Bottom line, anchor text still rules. This is why so many people buy and sell text links and it’s why Google still kicks up hell when people do so as it’s one of the main factors in their algorithm.

Again, great article. A good example of how domain names and anchor text influence a position in the SERPs.