Pedro Dias, a former Google employee who worked on the Search Quality and Webspam team for years, said on Twitter that Google is less likely to trust a link after it is modified.

He wrote:

I tried to probe Pedro on how he knows this. Was it from a test he conducted or was it from his past work experience at Google? My impression, but I do not have him saying this on record, was from his past experience:

So how much does Google drop the trust in the link? David Naylor asked Pedro and he implied, not too much:

He even added that less trust, in this case, is not a bad thing. I don’t see how that is possible:

Anyway, this is a former Googler saying this who worked closely in web search. He did not say if this is based on his past work experience with Google or via new tests he is running based on him now being an SEO consultant.

Either way, I am sure the SEO community will have a field day with this.

Forum discussion at Twitter.