Anchor Text

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells both users and search engines what the linked page is about. Google uses anchor text as a relevance signal: if many sites link to a page with the anchor "best project management software," that reinforces the page's relevance for that topic.

There are several anchor text types: exact-match (the keyword you target), partial-match (variation of the keyword), branded (your brand name), generic ("click here", "learn more"), and naked URL (the URL itself). A healthy backlink profile includes a natural mix of all types.

Over-optimizing anchor text — too many exact-match anchors pointing to a single page — is a pattern Google's Penguin algorithm targets. Natural link profiles have predominantly branded and generic anchors, with exact-match making up a small percentage.