Anchor text

In the sentence "read our guide to garden drainage", if only "guide to garden drainage" is clickable, those words are the anchor text. Search engines use them as a description of the target page, alongside the page's own content.

Anchor text is not something you only control on your own site. Other sites choose the words when they link to you, and a natural mix of brand names, plain URLs and descriptive phrases is what real linking looks like. A suspiciously uniform pattern of keyword anchors is a classic sign of manipulated links.

How it works

When a crawler follows a link, it records the anchor text with it. For internal links, descriptive anchors help search engines understand how your pages relate and which page is about which topic. For backlinks, anchors add context about what other sites think your page offers.

Anchors also matter for people. Screen-reader users often jump between links out of context, so "click here" or "read more" tells them nothing. Descriptive anchors are an accessibility improvement as well as an SEO one. For links from other sites, the most common anchor in a natural profile is usually the business name or the plain web address, because that is how people mention a company they did not set out to promote. Descriptive phrases appear too, written in each author's own words. Search engines compare this pattern with what they see across the web, which is why an unnaturally high share of identical keyword anchors stands out and can cause links to be discounted.

The words around a link matter too. Search engines read the surrounding sentence as context, so a link with a short anchor inside a paragraph about drainage problems still says plenty about the target page. That is one reason you do not need every anchor to repeat the target keyword. Varied, natural wording such as "how we fix waterlogged lawns" or "our drainage work" gives the same signal without the repetitive pattern that looks engineered.

Example

A dental clinic's blog post mentions implants and links the words "click here" to the implant page. It changes the link to "dental implant treatment", so readers know where it goes and search engines get a clear signal about the target page. It does the same across a dozen older posts in an afternoon.

The owner can review anchors without special tools. A site crawler, including free versions of common SEO crawlers, exports every internal link with its anchor text, making vague anchors like "here" easy to spot and fix. For links from other sites, Search Console's Links report includes a list of the most common linking text, which should look varied and mostly feature the business name.

Why it matters for your business

Good anchor text is a small, free improvement on your own site that makes navigation clearer and helps the right page rank for the right topic. For links from other sites you cannot dictate wording, and trying to, especially through paid links with exact-match anchors, is a risk to your rankings rather than a help. On your own pages, vague anchors are worth fixing whenever you edit a page anyway.

Common mistakes

• Using "click here" or "read more" for internal links instead of words that describe the destination.
• Asking every external site to link with the same exact keyword phrase.
• Using the same anchor text to point at two different pages, which confuses which one is about the topic.
• Making whole paragraphs clickable, so the anchor says nothing specific.

Questions people ask

What is good anchor text?

Good anchor text is short, specific and tells the reader what they will find, such as "wedding catering menu" rather than "here". It should read naturally in the sentence. On your own site, keep anchors to a page consistent with that page's topic without forcing the exact keyword every time.

Can anchor text hurt my SEO?

Yes, when it looks manipulated. A large share of external links using the same keyword-rich phrase is a pattern associated with link schemes and can lead Google to discount links or take manual action. Natural anchor profiles are mixed: brand names, URLs, descriptive phrases and generic words.

Does anchor text matter for image links?

Yes. When an image is used as a link, its alt text acts as the anchor text. Write alt text that describes the image and, where relevant, the destination. An image link with empty alt text gives search engines and screen-reader users nothing to go on.