<?php
$html = '<div>
<a href="http://www.google.com/">Google COM</a>
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.google.co.uk/">Google <span class="country">UK</span></a>
</div>
<span>
<a id="italy" href="http://www.google.it/"><span class="country">Italy</span><strong> I</strong></a>
<a class="link" href="#top">Top</a>
</span>
';

$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->loadHTML($html); # your string
$xpath = new DOMXpath($doc);

$links = $xpath->query("//div/a[text()[contains(., 'Italy') or contains(., 'Google')]]]");

var_dump($links);

?>