Is there a particular reason that the links are being converted to this type of character encoding? When I hit view source the linked word (physically between the a tag) doesn't say "Widget Here" but instead shows the amp code or whatever the name for that is. While it displays fine my guess is that google would rather follow a text link than this.
Code:
& #76;& #97;& #107;& #101; & #72;& #97;& #118;& #97;& #115;& #117;