Anchor (Link) Text Definition: How to Optimize it for SEO?

Anchor text is the visible text that is clickable and enables the reader to be redirected once the clickable text is clicked. It usually appears as blue underlined text, but users are able to change their website’s link colors and styles through the HTML or CSS. The anchor text is the link text with keywords that must be relevant to the linked page. SEO is mainly the reason that anchor text is implemented. Part of the algorithm of Google is specific to the anchor texts. The search engines use the anchor text that is indexed to make sure that the link is relevant to the source. SEO professionals must use anchor text to optimize the search result by providing relevant keywords for the anchor text. Providing a relationship and continuity for readers or users is one of the uses of anchor text to bridge between pages. ​​It possesses ranking signals that search engines use to learn the quality of linked pages. Search engines reward a page that provides a better user experience in return. Mainly there are 3 types of anchor text; exact match, partial match, and branded anchor text.

Contents of the Article show

What is an Anchor Text?

Anchor text is a specified word or phrase that is included in the content that contains hyperlinks linking to another page or article. Its prominent text color typically is blue, indicating that it contains hyperlinks, but most web maker tools nowadays have customizable tools when designing a web content’s appearance more from HTML or CSS. An example of anchor text that refers to a cyclist is the word “cyclist” as well, and when there are sentences that need to provide a competitor article, it is shown by providing an anchor text, “competitor article.” The purpose of anchor text is mainly used on text-heavy articles or pages that enable visitors to have a quick leap to a particular page without having to scroll through the entire content. It assures visitors that the website has relevant information that turns later into a conversion process because of visitors’ ability to jump to specific pages by using anchor text. The benefit of using anchor text on a website helps build trust from the readers that the website they are on is relevant. Additionally, the SEO measure pays off by providing the right signal to the search engine crawlers. The relevance of placing anchor text to an article is significant for the website’s growth, as it provides context for the user and the search engine. Anchor text provides link labels and some have a sneak peek of the entire page if the user decides to click it. The search engine uses the anchor text to make it indexes in order to rank the web pages in results.

An Example of Anchor Text

Anchor text is declared using web development tools or publishing tools, but a traditional way of declaring an anchor text using HTML code is shown below.

AsaAMUySBe3WKwEUE65c3UOiALv H1W1MaMg9bCMHZ7vrYL0M7U0m s8TT28mWP7TkE5TgUXgtIhLGmenCc8xLJ2Gkej nv6vO0FnWx1QtS4cU6zPh6r

The href is an HTML element that holds a hyperlink, the anchor text stated between the HTML A Tags <a></a>. The href holds the URL that it becomes an attribute of the anchor text label. The anchor text now provides a hyperlink, as it has a different appearance than the other text. The text now is clickable text. They are redirected to another document or web page related to the text that the user recently clicked when the user clicks it through.

What are the types of anchor text?

  • Exact Match Anchor Text
  • Partial Match Anchor Text
  • Branded Anchor Text
  • Naked Link Anchor Text
  • Generic Anchor Text
  • Image Anchor Text
  • Random Anchor Text
  • Phrase Match Anchor Text

1. Exact Match Anchor Text

The exact match anchor text is the simplest type of anchor text that is used for SEO ranking. The SEO optimizer considered exact match anchor text as the core keywords and money keywords. The anchor text is just simply how the exact phrase of keywords is the anchor text label. For example, the link page is, “the best way to lose weight in just a week.” The anchor text just is like, ”the best way to lose weight in just a week”. The advantage of the exact match anchor text is that it is easy to set up because it is just the same label and the required link. The disadvantages, however; signals as a link-building scheme, do not look natural, and do not entice users to click through. 

2. Partial Match Anchor Text

The partial match anchor text is generally the most used anchor text. Partial match anchor text enables an anchor text to be a long keyword. Partial match anchor text is used to match internal links by not using all the whole phrases of a sentence. An example phrase like “Top 10 best SEO tools” is going to be “Best SEO tools” for an anchor text. The advantage of using a partial match anchor text is that the keyword does not need to be modified in order to fit the link title. It does not get a bad impression as a link builder compared to the exact match anchor text.

3. Branded Anchor Text

Branded anchor text is just a simple brand name used as anchor text. The visitor is redirected to the brand’s homepage if a brand is clickable. The advantage of using a branded anchor text is to promote brand awareness for visitors. Visitors have the chance to know more about the brand by clicking through the link. For placing a branded anchor text, simply just by highlighting the brand name, “Holisticseo”, if it is clicked the visitor is redirected to the Holistic SEO main page. However, Branded anchor text is only limited to links of the Brand and not some important topics that the user might need.

4. Naked Link Anchor Text

The naked link anchor text is termed because of its appearance as a bare URL that is pasted within the content. Naked link anchor text typically is added at the bottom of the article by the readers for reference. There are some pages that do the type of practice using exposed URLs as anchor text. Anchor text must be related to the link that it is attached, Naked link anchor text typically contains some words that are related to the content that the clicker expects to see. Studies show that Google loves naked URLs or naked anchor texts, because of their less spammy characteristics as being transparent. For example: “https://www.myfirstblog.com/how-create-new-article/”, the naked anchor text indicates a hint to where the link go after the user clicks it.

5. Generic Anchor Text

The generic anchor text is known as the regular anchor text because it does not provide textual information or caption relevant to the end-link. Generic anchor text depends on the surrounding text within the content in order for the reader to understand or predict the content they are going to expect after clicking the link. Using generic anchor text as a CTA is a powerful way to associate its purpose, though most of the time it is suspected as being spammy. One example is ‘Click Here’ which is the common anchor or “See More” is a good example.

6. Image Anchor Text

Image anchor text is a type of hyperlink that used images or banners that redirects visitors to a specific URL or link relevant to the image. Image anchor text is mostly used to provide external links, especially with affiliate links and other promotional links. The advantage of using image anchor text is that it is attractive and most visitors are likely to be drawn to click the image. The downside however is that the image is not a relevant keyword to be used as a search term for the search engine. Using an image as anchor text must be followed by declaring an alt image text so that it is keyword focused as well.

7. Random Anchor Text

Random anchor text is a type of anchor text that is not specified or related to the link or hyperlink. Often times there are link analysis tools that randomly generate a generic anchor text in a similar category. These random anchor texts came with phrases that are not typically as generic as a “click here”, but it isn’t related to the keyword object as well. Random anchor text advantage is that it is not accounted for as keyword stuffing or hurts the search results. Most users or visitors understand generic anchor texts mean more information that is given if clicked. Random anchor text typically minimizes the pages from getting into some trouble, affiliate links use random anchor texts to hide real intentions, it’s either good or bad, but random anchor text minimizes the pages getting into trouble.

8. Phrase Match Anchor Text

A phrase that matches anchor text is a link bearing a particular phrase that a website is attempting to rank. The phrase-matched anchor texts are typically used by starters who do not use patterns. Phrase-match anchor text has an advantage because they provide more context for the readers, especially for long-phrase anchor text.

What are the best practices for Anchor Texts?

Listed below are the 8 best practices for anchor texts.

  • By keeping it natural and versatile: Google has stressed that contents and other parts of any given site provide relevant links as the anchor text for the users. The anchor text is where the links are supposed to be as where the users expect them to be. Repetitive keywords or anchor texts have to be avoided because Google’s algorithm is getting smarter every year, and it detects websites that are stuffing too many keywords, which is considered spamming, which leads to penalties.
  • By avoiding over-optimization: Cloud-based anchor text keywords are not allowed in Google, such as overly rich anchor texts. It causes penalties as it blunts manipulation over backlinks, instead spreading internal links across the site.
  • By keeping anchor texts relevant to content: Google eventually understands every page’s content over time as the algorithm keeps understanding the relevance. The DeepMind is an AI technology that learns just like humans; it processes and learns how every page acts and how it provides relevant data. Putting irrelevant anchor text for an Internal link likely affects its ranking on search results. The same as with backlinks with irrelevant anchor text as well. Google’s objective is to improve the user experience, by providing the best and most relevant sources for the users in the most effective way.
  • By engaging in relevant guest blogging: Keeping the content where it is relevant, especially when engaging with other sources that share the same type of discussions. Providing a variety of information that co-relates with the same ideas or relevant information is the best thing to do. Google sees the relationship and learns that the topics and discussion are relevant to each other, which makes it the website has the authority to provide such information.
  • By avoiding links from and linking to spammy sites: Every website takes it seriously when linking to unknown or low-quality websites. Bigger or established websites are unaware of these deals with smaller or established websites. Most of them offer money in exchange for promoting their website. It affects the credibility to provide quality links If a good website links to a spammy or low-quality website. Google sees that the recommended link points to a bad-ranking website. It leads to penalties and costs for the website to be not recommended on search results.
  • By distributing anchor texts in the right proportions: Though “right proportions” discussion is still an argument for stuffing anchor texts with exact match and partial match keywords. Instead, introduce more branded anchors because the algorithm of Google allowed such links as well as with other different search engines too. The best anchor text for SEO is using page titles or blog post titles as anchor texts, according to Adam White of the Search Engine Journal. There are still discussions of what is the right proportions of anchor texts, but in the case of studies, the right slices are: 50% be branded, 15% are websites names, 10 to 15% are naked URLs, and 1-5% are Generic anchor texts with exact and partial match keywords. These things have to be taken into deep analysis and not be taken are the constant formula for a page’s success at the end of the day.
  • By focusing anchor texts on deep-level pages: The most typical mistakes that beginner SEO developers do are setting links on homepages, landing pages, and product pages, believing it is the right approach and best to build on top-level pages. Most SEO optimizers do not realize that an anchor text cloud building on simple pages does not feel natural for Google and other search engines. Most shareable content likely came from blog content in a case study about blog posts. These steps provide a natural look for the page and build a general anchor text cloud that gives the users or visitors a top-level page.
  • By placing anchor texts where users pay attention the most: Typically, they skim through pages and look for relevant sources or the exact term they are looking for, as most reader does not often read all the content. The first paragraphs, headings, subheadings, and some images are the main parts that most users look at. These places are the best areas where the anchor texts are placed, as people typically focus more on those areas. It increases the click-through rate as users find it descriptive and click it to know more about what’s inside.

What is the ideal length for an anchor text?

The ideal length for anchor text changes from one topic to another as well as the web page document content. There is no definite perfect number of anchor texts. Ideal anchor text length changes according to the types of anchor text like branded, exact match, and partial or phrase match anchor texts. Branded match anchor text is quite shorter than other anchor text types because it is just providing a brand name. An incomplete phrase or partial keyword as an anchor text is the same as the Branded anchor text, both have shorter words or text. The only significance of a lengthy anchor text like a phrase match anchor text or a sentence anchor text is that it provides more context for the reader to what they are going to read after clicking the link. 

How many words are better for anchor text?

The length of words used as anchor text varies in every topic and is based on web page document content. There is no certain amount of words that is an ideal text number for anchor text. It is typically arranged in different cases, such as the topic and information needed or the keyword defined by the context. 

What are the benefits of Anchor Text for Search Engines?

Google gives importance to anchor texts to determine what the page is all about, these measures let Google decide its rank successively. The search algorithm’s objective has been dedicated to anchor text according to Google’s beginnings. The anchor text is treated as a special link for search engines. Search engines relate the text of the link with the page that the link is currently. Additionally, it is related to what the link is pointing to. Anchor text provides more descriptive information, while the pages provide metadata. Every backlink anchor text is from sources that are not biased. Exact matched anchor text was mostly the marketers used to manipulate Google’s ability to rank pages in earlier years of 2012. Keyword-rich sites benefited from the young algorithm of Google.

Listed below are the five benefits of anchor text for search engines.

  • Gives Relevance between Two Web Pages
  • Provides Contextual Crawl Path Across Different Web Pages
  • Flows PageRank between Web Documents
  • Gives Web Page Purpose to Web Search Engines
  • Gives Relevance Between Web Page and Targeted Queries

1. Gives Relevance between Two Web Pages

Anchor text is relevant between two web pages, whether a website or a blog. Anchor texts that are executed properly enhance the user experience and attract the users to take the action they expect them to. However, significant rules must be considered when using anchor text for optimal results. Providing links to another website that has relevant and appropriate anchor text provides the thought for the users regarding what they are going to learn. Using a descriptive anchor text offers more context to users as to what they expect before even clicking through the anchor text link. Providing relevant links to anchor text helps the page’s authority and reputation. Another benefit is that the visitor’s time spent on the website increases, as the goal of a website needs to be.

2. Provides Contextual Crawl Path Across Different Web Pages

Anchor text provides a contextual crawl path across different web pages, although ranks in search change in a migration even if the URL did not change. Google’s ability to crawl pages either better or worsen if the content or layout changes drastically. The internal link changes  impacted the ability of Google’s crawl across different web pages, which the publishers have to pay close attention to.

3. Flows PageRank between Web Documents

Anchor text flows PageRank between web documents through the provision of links and indexing of documents by the methods and system. The pair of one or more source documents and targeted documents are accessed through a link log. It is generated along with the targeted documents and paired documents in an anchor map. The paired documents or pages are sorted in the given anchor map based on the target document or linked page.

4. Gives Web Page Purpose to Web Search Engines

Anchor text gives web page purpose to web search engines because anchor text is used to link across another site. Keywords are the key to ranking in a search engine along with the anchor text that is appropriate or relevant, and the chosen keyword for the anchor text rank accordingly. There are situations where websites undergo penalization because of showing unusual proportions of the anchor text links. There are no procedures or standards to determine the best anchor text based on the current Google update of 2022. Even determining the number or amount of anchor text is still debatable. Most SEO professionals believed that studying the search engine results page results discovers the best anchor ratios for each niche. Search engines either rely on the text surrounding the anchor text or whether the linked page is relativity to the source page. The patent granted in 2014 provides information on how to use the related words and certain terms along with the phrases as anchor text to help the search engine to understand what the page is all about, according to Bill Slawsky. It enables the page to improve its rank or get penalized.

5. Gives Relevance Between Web Page and Targeted Queries

Anchor text gives relevance between a web page and targeted queries as the keyword provides relationship and search engines use it as a ranking signal. SEO and link builders often times manipulate the anchor text from the targeted websites but doing such manipulation eventually be observed by the algorithm. Anchor texts depend on the surrounding texts. The keywords are associated with meanings that are built up within the article or content subheadings.  

Do Search Engines Index Anchor Texts?

Yes, search engines index anchor texts. Especially for Google which loves using anchor text indexing in order to measure the relevance of the page pointed out by the link. A primary website that contains a link to the second website has an index entry equivalent to the second website, ​​according to the associated subset. The contextual information using anchor text benefits the first website as it describes the second page accurately. Additionally, there are types of website that have little or does not have textual information to provide such as, image files, video files, program, and music files. Anchor text links are the best textual information that the page has, in order for these types of websites to have context. Furthermore, the approach has the ability to be indexed already, before the website has been crawled. The approach has the ability to be indexed already. The present algorithm facilitates the indexing of the information and data about the document that is not possessed by itself. It effectively enables more text-based indexing algorithms for search engines. Including those content that is non-textual content, such as multimedia websites, unpublished pages, republished websites, and other sites that change rapidly.​​

What are the three main features of good Anchor Texts according to Google?

knowing that optimizing blog posts for the top-performing keywords is important, as well as determining how Google ranks the top-performing keywords and phrases.  It tells all the information to Google what the focus and topic of the content, which is anchored text. There are 3 main features that a good anchor text provides, according to Google.

  • Descriptive: Anchor text provides descriptive information, and significantly provides context to the users or readers.
  • Useful: Anchor text is useful because it helps the readers to understand what the link means and what to expect after it is clicked.
  • Relevant: Anchor text is relevant, according to Google because they use the anchor text as a basis of content relevancy.

1. Descriptive

Anchor text provides descriptive information, and significantly provides context to the users or readers. Providing enough description of the anchor text relies on the proper keyword. Keywords describe what the anchor link is, even before being redirected after it was clicked.​​

2. Useful

Anchor text is useful because it helps the readers to understand what the link means and what to expect after it is clicked. For the readers, sometimes there is information that is needed some brief explanation that is not part of t​​he current content. Anchor text is useful as a bridge to other related topics suggested to the readers. It provides continuity of information that the reader benefits from and providing a useful link to other relevant topics provides a great user experience.

3. Relevant

Anchor text is relevant, according to Google because they use the anchor text as a basis of content relevancy. Google makes sure that there is a relation between two pages before it is recommended to be the relevant source that matches a page to another page. Google dedicates the anchor text as the main idea of PageRank, anchor text is a big part of the PageRank algorithm that is now effectively used to determine good websites.

Why is Anchor Text important for Search Engine Optimization?

Anchor text is essential for Search Engine Optimization because it indicates to Google or another search engine what the page is all about. Google make patents about including anchor text as a ranking signal for search engine. Using generic anchor text such as, “click here” or not providing anchor text is considered a poor SEO practice. SEO practices ​​include anchor text as the primary build block. SEO without providing proper use of anchor text links just does not work. It is important to properly use anchor text and know its potential to be beneficial for building a good, relevant website. The first step before doing something else always is to know what the anchor text is capable of and how it represents a relationship between pages. The second step is to improve such SEO skills of how to implement the anchor text and understand how to create links that are relevant to its purpose. Building good anchor text is to provide a great user experience that makes them find the content they are reading as a relevant source. It signals to Google that the web page is providing a great user experience by providing a relevant source, and as a reward, it is recommended on the search result ranking page.

What did John Mueller of Google tell about Anchor Texts?

There are helpful quotes that John Mueller tells about anchor texts. According to John Mueller, “I don’t think we do anything special to the length of words in the anchor text. But rather, we use this anchor text as a way to provide extra context for the individual pages. Sometimes if you have a longer anchor text, that gives us a bit more information”. Regarding ranking factors, Mueller said, “We’ve kind of moved away from the over 200 ranking signals number, because it feels like even having a number like that is kind of misleading in the sense that, Oh Google has a spreadsheet with all of the ranking signals, and they just sort them by importance and tell me which ones they are. And that’s definitely not the case.” According to the number of backlinks that don’t matter, “You could go off and create millions of links across millions of websites if you wanted to, and we could just ignore them all. Or there could be one really good link from one website out there that is, for use, a really important sign that we should treat this website as something that is relevant because it has that one link… So the total number essentially is completely irrelevant.” Changing the dates won’t improve rankings John stresses, “I don’t think it would change anything with regards to search, and we definitely wouldn’t rank those pages differently in search just because you’re changing the date and time on a page.” Duplicated contents are not negative considered a negative ranking factor, “So if you have the same content on multiple pages then we won’t show all of these pages. We’ll try to pick one of them and show that. So it’s not that there’s any negative signal associated with that. In a lot of cases, that’s kind of normal that you have some amount of shared content across some pages.”​​​​

John Mueller is working with Google as a senior webmaster trends analyst. Mueller started working on Google in September 2007. John Mueller owns a software company in Switzerland for 12 years before Google. Mueller created a site map generator after the sitemaps were introduced during those years. John Mueller’s words matter as an advocate of Google search and dedication to sharing knowledge about lots of SEO insights and being full-time on it. Mueller’s words matter to the SEO community, aside from being at Google. The information shared is relevant to how search engine behaves nowadays. John Mueller is willing to answer questions and assist SEO professionals weekly in a live question-and-answer session. Even on other platforms and forums, John Mueller’s videos and social media posts are shared with SEO communities and other tech community forums.

What is Annotation Text?

Text annotation refers to a systematic summary of the text that is created within the document.  It reveals patterns by using close reading taken as the key to identifying main points and relevant words. Text annotation is an active strategy for learning improvements to comprehend and retain information. Examples of annotation texts first are by highlighting or underlining. First, it is the most common form of annotating texts. It is the best way to pick out the appropriate language within the cited text. Second, paraphrase or summarize of main ideas. It emphasizes the whole understanding of the idea and notes in the margins along with the critical ideas. Third, a descriptive outline shows the organization of a piece of writing, elaborating the ideas that are introduced, including the development. Fourth, comments and responses annotation goes beyond understanding the meaning of texts and organization through the reactions along with agreements and disagreements as well as questions about personal experiences in connection with the topics. The importance of annotation text is that it describes the type of categorical research topic and what is included in the source that reflects on the subject. 

How does Annotation Text affect Anchor Text?

Annotation text affects the anchor text by its center density as the nucleus. Visualizing the annotation text as the electron circling the atom in the center emphasizes the anchor text. Electrons revolving around the atoms are reliable terms that are not able to be easily stripped down. It means that web crawlers easily retrieve information about reliable terms from the anchor texts. Google likely references the annotation text in addition to the anchor text if the annotation text provided is excellent, which enables a better understanding of the linked page. It results in a better reading experience for the users and is likely to be recommended in the search results.

Which Anchor Text type is best for SEO?

The best anchor text type for SEO combines different anchor texts to provide a natural anchor text profile. Thus, the best anchor text type changes according to the existing anchor text profile. Anchor text types comply with the web page’s relevance, quality, and topic. Best anchor text practices differ from what is needed, it is not limited to one over the other. The best anchor text type matter for every situation. As long as it is answered by these situations, it is succinct as possible. Mainly, the anchor texts possess these properties. First, it is accurately describing what is linked. Second, determine what phrase or keyword entices the user to click on the link. A relevant target page is another thing to consider as the search engines evolve to a smarter AI technology; it ensures the metrics Google has determined how relevant the first page is to the second page. Through the topic of the source page up to the content anchor text of its source. The keyword density of the anchor text affects the quality of a page, especially when a page contains keywords. The algorithm determines whether the page contains spammy keywords, or does it have good-quality keywords that are relevant to its links.

How to Optimize Anchor Text for SEO?

To optimize anchor text for SEO, the links or inbound links preferably match the keywords. Though there are bad SEO practices as they abuse the anchor text’s power of ranking through search, by understanding its purpose and providing a great user experience, Google rewards the page by recommending it on the search results page. 

Listed below are eight ways to optimize anchor text for SEO.

  • Use the anchor text once: Determining the right anchor text be analyzed well and placed where it is. Never use the same anchor text more than once; try to mix up keywords but put some fillers to make it unique. It not only looks good but is natural and gets improved results if there are just a few links in the content.
  • Use the title tag as an anchor text: Using the SEO title tags as an anchor text is a good idea as an anchor text. Title tags are typically used just once, and they are used as anchor text. It is displayed on the search engine results page, giving the users context on what to expect after clicking the link. Most of the time, anchor text based on the title tag is used as an advantage for providing enough context. The best thing about using a title tag as an anchor text is that it is full of optimized keywords for search results.
  • Anchor text has to be related to the link type: Suiting the anchor text for the link type is used to provide the rightful words to describe the link. The categories are open from different sources, such as blog articles, link lists, forums, and comments. Most users or SEO beginners tend to focus on branded anchor texts or naked URL anchor texts. Almost all the sidebar links are covered by images in some cases, considered alt-tags for anchor text. The publisher is sometimes unable to add more relevance to the pictures by providing descriptions and nothing else. Some publisher tends to leave the title tags blank, unable to create enough anchor text. Users sometimes share SEO title tags in a forum, most of the time naked URLs are being shared that are helpful for discussions.
  • Break the keywords for clarity: Mostly associated with the keywords aren’t doing very well when it comes to search results. Some words aren’t good with each other, and sometimes it projects different meaning or provides different results. An example is “Coffee bean Brooklyn”, if the ranks don’t work well, try to break the keyword into “Coffee bean” or “Brooklyn”. It works as a partial match keyword and tends to work well as an anchor text. 
  • Branded anchor text with naked URL: Branded anchors are mainly the type of anchor text used in SEO. In order not to be penalized for using the brands for target anchor text,  enable us to sneak more anchors. Product URLs provide context to users and a sneak peek at what is inside the link. Pairing the brand with a naked URL helps the page justify the anchor text that is relevant to the keywords.
  • Use Long Phrases: Long phrases are associated with exact match anchor text, but the truth is that it isn’t actually. Exact match anchors are complete phrases or the title of the internal or external links, and long phrases are incomplete sentences used as the keyword to enable anchor text. Always remember that contextual anchor texts organically describe what they are trying to link. There is a mixing of short to long phrases every time. 
  • Use Synonyms as anchor text: Using synonyms as anchor text provides more keyword density and enables the publisher to use the same anchor text but with a synonym equivalent. Especially when there are limits to how often the target keywords are used, synonyms are used instead.
  • Surrounding the anchor text with related keywords: Surrounding related keywords for anchor text is a good assumption that benefits the link because it helps the algorithm determine the keywords related to it. It is a good practice to do it the way because it provides contextual evidence that the topic is related to the link provided. It enables Google search to recommend the link by ranking it on the search results page.

How to Optimize Internal Link Structure with Link Text Improvement?

Listed below are 12 ways how to optimize internal link structure with link text improvement.

  • Creating More Content: Creating lots of content enables the website to establish more grounds to link to each other.  Creating more content builds up the site’s structure, especially when the content has good quality. Lots of content means an ample internal linking possibility is utilized. It doesn’t need to have more complex layers to create patterns just to have a good internal linking structure because there is good content build-up.
  • Link High Authority Pages to Improved Rankings: ​​The authority transfer technique is an important and powerful method to distribute link authority to SEO pages. There are SEO tools such as Ahrefs to look for pages and add internal likes from them. 
  • Think of an Anchor Text to Rank: Use anchor text and not link images to keep up with the content theme of internal links when dealing with images or pictures. The alt tags are properly indicated and annotated the image accurately if dealing with image anchor text. Natural and unoptimized sentence fragments are applied to avoid being detected as spammy.
  • Deeper Link: Providing links is the most essential way of strengthening the internal support between pages. Support between pages is done by linking to each other, as long as it maintains relevance across sites. Homepages not be included in building internal links and anchor text, as links already point out. Focus more on content to interlink them to strengthen their relationship.
  • Contextual links: Ensuring that the links are in context, as the primary purpose of providing an internal link strategy is to provide a great user experience. Providing the best user experience is rewarded by Google. Users are able to tell that the links or anchor text have contextual relevance after they have clicked through the link and got what they need. It is a win-win situation for both users and the publisher, as they both get what they want through context and providing user experience.
  • Context of links: Ensuring that links provide contexts, is the primary goal of using the internal links by providing a better user experience as a strategy. It is an advantage, later on, thus, Google honors the principle of a better user experience is rewarded by ranking it on the relevant page. The user is led to the page via anchor text because they are certain that the link is related to the previously-read content. The user is provided with a good amount of content while the search engine determines the rightful content generated between the pages, it is a win for both parties.
  • Provide related links for internal linking: Internal links signify the structure of the website by giving relations between their pages. Being a standard quality of a website’s internal links ensures a better user experience once they land on a single page. The possibility of being redirected to another page determines the user’s satisfaction if they find relevance in the web pages. It is done smartly and makes sure that the web page linked is relevant to the content of the page that is linking from, whenever creating an internal link. An example of a blog website talking about a beauty cream review. The lower part of the content talks about the price and where to get it; there is a link under the brand’s name linking to an online store where they are able to buy it. It shows that the review blog provides a better user experience by providing a related connection to the online store and a good context about the product being reviewed.
  • Being reasonable for the number of internal links used: It is not necessary to create a bunch of internal links for a web page. Though, there are no documents supporting the exact number of links that be provided on the page. It depends on the content post whether 2 to 5 links be enough per content post. Five internal links are enough for a 1500-word count article. The links are equally well distributed across the article and do not get too near to each other or clustered into one subheading.
  • Avoid putting general footer links: Most websites put keyword-rich internal links at the foot of the website; it has become obsolete nowadays as a standard practice from the earlier years when search algorithms are still young. Footer links today are considered to be a spammy approach. Google and other search engines penalize these websites possessing the kind of approach.
  • Avoid using the same anchor text between pages: It generates a conclusion for the search engine to think the two pages are the same if a website page contains the same anchor text as the other page. Use a descriptive type of anchor text in order to avoid confusion and maximize the anchor text.
  • Put links in the beginning part of the content: Providing links in the first part of the paragraph of the content enables the user to have something to check right away. It keeps the user connected for some time. Needless to say, the equal placing of the anchor text in other parts of the article be done as well, as long as the above area has the first anchor text to be checked out.
  • Using internal links for indexing: All significant website pages are discovered and indexed by search engines like Google. Google might index a few pages for situations where the number of pages exceeds the crawl budget. A tremendously structured website contains relevant internal links, easily identified by Google as an indexing signal for ranking.

What does Anchor Text Affect?

Anchor text affects how search engines determine the relevance of a webpage to a particular search query. Search engines interpret the anchor text as a description or summary of the linked webpage when a webpage includes a hyperlink to another webpage using anchor text. It helps search engines understand the context and content of the linked webpage and influences how the linked webpage is ranked in search engine results If the anchor text is relevant and descriptive of the content on the linked webpage. A webpage about bird species includes a hyperlink to a webpage about migratory birds using the anchor text “Migratory birds.” Search engines interpret it as a signal that the connected webpage is about migratory birds and ranks the webpage higher in search results for queries related to migratory birds. It is essential to note that anchor text is just one factor that search engines consider when ranking webpages, and its influence varies depending on the search query and other factors. Additionally, anchor text has to be used naturally and not to be excessively optimized in an attempt to manipulate search rankings.

Is Anchor Text a Ranking Factor?

Yes, anchor text is a ranking factor. Providing descriptive anchor text when placing links on the page content is the best practice under Google’s SEO starter guide. Anchor text as a ranking factor is not a secret method, though beginners have to digest every inch of SEO learning. Taking a step at a time have a better understanding of how things work and how anchor text factors in the ranking of pages.

Is Anchor Text a Relevance Factor?

Yes, anchor text has a relevance factor. Anchor text is able to provide for search engines and for the readers as well. The search engine is able to understand the relevance of the link destination from the keyword anchors that are placed. Anchor text provides contextual information regarding the destination link without even clicking through the link as the same with the user.

Is Anchor Text a Web Site Quality Signal?

Yes, anchor text is a website quality signal. However, Google search engines used the anchor text as a signal for measuring how the quality of the provided link is relevant to the source. It enables the search result pages to recommend the relevant website to its list. 

Does Anchor Text help for a better User Experience?

Yes, anchor text help for a better user experience. Readers or users navigate the page to look for relevant articles or keywords that help them with their research. Readers find out the content and if suggested a related link in a form of anchor text, it ends up being redirected to the relevant page. It provides the user or reader with a continuity of research that helps them gather the necessary information that they need. It is the kind of better user experience that the search engine likes to reward.

Can Anchor Text change the context of web documents according to search engines?

Yes, anchor text can change the context of a web document according to search engines. However, changing its context is crucial and might end up being degraded by the search engine because it lacks credibility. Making a trial link be analyzed as well as a first stage of observing the trend. SEO professionals take advantage of placing relevant internal and external links in order to provide a good quality website through its content.

Are Link Text and Anchor Text the Same?

Yes, the link text and anchor text are the same. They are clickable text that redirects a user or reader to a relevant page according to the text provided. The appearance of an anchor text or link text is typically blue and oftentimes underlined. A great anchor text provides contextual information for the reader, in order for the user to expect what is inside the anchor text after it is clicked.

How to use Anchor Text in HTML?

Anchor text originally is stated as an HTML code. HTML is the oldest and simplest way of providing hyperlink text. There are 3 main parts of a hyperlink that is used to make an anchor text. First is the “href” element, second is the URL, and third is the anchor text or label.  Before anything else the three main parts needed a vessel and for the vessel the HTML A tag be used or <a></a>. Given the example, the URL is “https://www.hello.com” and the anchor text label is “Hello”. To be able to visualize the anchor text label, the anchor text be placed inside the HTML A tag like this, <a>Hello</a>. Next is declaring the URL to the href like href=“https://www.hello.com”. Last is to place a hyperlink inside the HTML A tag like this, <a href=“https://www.hello.com”>Hello</a>. The output is a word “Hello” that is clickable, and any user or reader that clicks it be redirected to the page or the URL, https://www.hello.com.

Holistic SEO
Follow SEO

3 thoughts on “Anchor (Link) Text Definition: How to Optimize it for SEO?”

  1. Hi Koray,

    Nice article! But one topic is missing:) What about anchor text for EMDs? I read your EMD case study, too, but I can’t find a detailed approach to optimizing EMD anchor text.

    Karl Hudson said, for example, that for EMDs with multiple words, anchors without a space between the words get seen as branded, while anchors with a space get seen as exact match anchors. Example (slotmachine.TLD) he gave: “slot machine” = seen as exact/money anchor | “slotmachine” = seen as branded

    Is this true?

    Much love,
    Simon

    Reply
    • EMD anchor text is helpful for EMDs directly since it is not clear that whether this is a branded anchor text, or a generic term anchor text.
      Most of these articles are written years ago, and they are not adjusted according to the Holistic SEO level case studies, but they should be refreshed.
      In this case, if you can make people search for your brand name, and click on your website with an engagement signal, you can bend the meaning of the generic term, and turn it into a branded term for yourself in the query log sessions.

      Reply
  2. Thank you for the answer, it truly means a lot! In this case, I will start utilizing more naked URL anchors for my EMD until I manage to change the generic term into a branded term.

    Reply

Leave a Comment

Anchor (Link) Text Definition: How to Optimize it for SEO?

by Holistic SEO time to read: 30 min
3