The words inside the link
Anchor text is the visible, clickable part of a link. In a sentence such as “Read the city’s guide to recycling rules,” the words “guide to recycling rules” might be the anchor. Readers see it as underlined or colored text, and search engines read it as a short description of where the link leads.
That second role is why anchor text gets attention in link discussions. If many pages describe a destination in similar words, a search engine can reasonably learn what the destination is about. How much weight this carries today is not publicly known and probably varies, so it is best treated as a helpful signal, not a lever.
The main kinds of anchor text
Anchors tend to fall into a few familiar groups:
- Descriptive: words that say what the page is, such as “guide to repotting houseplants.”
- Brand or name: the name of a business, person or publication.
- Generic: phrases like “click here,” “this page” or “read more.”
- Naked URL: the web address itself, shown as text.
- Exact phrase: wording that matches a search phrase someone might type, such as “cheap running shoes.”
- Image links: when the link is an image, the image’s alt text typically acts as the anchor.
None of these is inherently bad. Variety is normal, because different people write about the same page in different ways.
What natural anchor text looks like
When many independent writers link to a page, the anchors usually end up mixed. Some use the site name, some use the page title, some use a short description, and some use a bare address or a phrase like “this article.” Few people carefully choose the exact search phrase a page hopes to rank for.
This is why a profile in which most links use the same exact commercial phrase tends to look engineered. If a site were truly being cited by a variety of people, the anchors would not usually line up so neatly. Search engines have long discouraged manipulating link wording this way, so a pattern of identical, keyword-heavy anchors is something to avoid creating and something to notice when reviewing your backlink profile.
Choosing anchor text on your own site
For links you control, such as those within your own pages, the goal is simple: help the reader know what they will find.
- Be specific. “Our returns policy” tells a reader more than “click here.”
- Keep it short. A few words are usually enough. Whole sentences make poor anchors.
- Make it make sense out of context. Some visitors scan links alone, including people using screen readers, who may pull up a list of every link on a page. A list of ten links all reading “read more” is unusable.
- Match the destination. If the anchor promises a price list and leads to a contact form, readers feel misled.
- Vary naturally. Do not force variety, but do not paste the same phrase into every link either. Writing for the sentence in front of you tends to produce reasonable variety by itself.
This is part of what makes internal linking useful: the wording gives both people and crawlers context about each page.
When others link to you
You have little control over how other sites word links to you, and that is fine. Some practical points:
- Do not ask people to use a specific keyword-rich phrase. A request like “please link to us using this exact text” is the kind of detail that can make a link look arranged.
- If you do suggest anything, a brand name or the page title is a natural, safe choice.
- If a publisher links with an awkward or inaccurate anchor, a polite note is reasonable, but it is not worth pressing.
Partial matches and brand names are likely to dominate in a healthy mix, with generic and URL-based anchors making up the rest. There is no known correct ratio, and anyone quoting one as a rule is guessing.
Accessibility and anchors
Good anchor text also helps accessibility. People who navigate by keyboard or by listening to a page often jump from link to link. Wording that stands alone makes that practical. This overlaps with ideas around keyboard navigation, where clear link purpose is part of a usable page. Links that open files should say so, such as “annual report (PDF),” and links that leave the site in a surprising way are better labeled.
Mistakes to avoid
- Stuffing keywords into anchors. This echoes keyword stuffing on pages: it reads awkwardly and signals effort aimed at search engines instead of readers.
- Linking whole sentences or paragraphs, which makes it hard to see what is clickable.
- Using the same anchor for two different destinations on one page, which confuses both readers and crawlers.
- Anchoring on “here” for important links.
- Overthinking it. A clear, honest anchor that describes the destination is almost always good enough.
A quick review routine
Take a page you care about and look at the links pointing to it, both ones from your own site and from elsewhere. Ask:
- Do the anchors describe the page accurately?
- Is there a mix, or is one phrase repeated suspiciously often?
- Are any anchors misleading or irrelevant?
- On your own pages, would each link make sense if read alone?
Fix what you control, leave what you do not, and treat anything odd in external links as a reason to look closer, not to panic.