Anchor texts

Anchor texts (link texts) are the clickable words of a link. They give users and search engines context, improve accessibility and influence SEO: vary them naturally for external links, and link clearly and consistently internally.

Building a link profile is one of the off-page measures for a website within search engine optimisation. Google places great value on high-quality backlinks. What always matters for a link is the anchor text, also known as link text. Such a text, which may well contain a keyword, tells users what they will find on a page. Generally speaking, it refers to the words in a document that are marked as a hyperlink. The clickable text of a link is usually highlighted in colour or underlined (or similar). The link text is only one part of a hyperlink: while the (full) target address of the link (URL) is not visible to the reader of an article, the readable part of the HTML code (anchor text) is. In the source code, such an anchor could look like this:

<a href="https://www.example.com">Anchor text</a>

The commands above are HTML tags used for the anchor texts of links according to the HTML standard. Many browsers show the hyperlink's target address when you hover the mouse over the anchor text. This lets readers see in advance where the link leads. Even though the target URL is normally not shown in the text flow, a web address itself can serve as the link text. For example:

<a href="https://www.example.com/subpage">www.example.com</a>

What is the function of anchor texts? Why do they matter for links?

The link text is not just a readable reference meant to lead people to further articles or websites. Rather, the anchor text should offer readers orientation, so the words give them context about what to expect on the page. Ideally, the anchor text therefore describes the information behind the hyperlink. The anchor text also plays an important role in accessibility, which is meant to enable blind or visually impaired people to use digital services. When a screen reader reads out the text, the link text should convey where the hyperlink leads.

Wording link texts: what types of anchor text are there?

Many people think: as long as the link is somewhere in the text, it's fine. But embedding hyperlinks isn't quite that simple. On the one hand, the anchor text should fit naturally into the text flow; on the other, it should describe the target URL as well as possible. Popular texts like “here” or “click me” therefore say little about the destination. And because anchor text is part of how search engines evaluate links, it should not be chosen carelessly.

From an SEO perspective, there are different types of anchor text: the brand anchor, which refers to a brand (e.g. “arboro”), the keyword or money anchor, which contains the search target directly (e.g. “buy handbags”), and the compound anchor as a combination of both: “buy handbags at XY”. There are also URL anchors (“www.example.com”) and generic anchors such as “learn more”. Since Google released the Penguin update in April 2012, a well-considered anchor text has become all the more important: a link profile consisting mainly of exact-match keyword anchors looks unnatural and may be judged negatively.

Hard vs. soft links: naturalness is the key to optimising your website

Classic hard link texts are therefore no longer a promising strategy for backlinks. Simply taking a few keywords and using them repeatedly as anchor texts brings hardly any benefit – quite the opposite. The question should not be “Which keywords do I want to fit into the link?” but “How do I get users to click the link with this text?”. As a rule, the link profile and with it the anchor texts must look natural (soft links) to go down well with search engines like Google. An anchor text should also describe as precisely as possible what awaits on the target page. Long-tail phrases are therefore a good choice for backlinks.

Link structures within a site: texts for internal links

For internal links on your own website, on the other hand, clear keyword anchors still make sense. If you run an online shop for DIY supplies, for example, it is best to link the “Screwdrivers” category with exactly that anchor text. Ideally, you should also use the same link text consistently for a given subpage, so that Google clearly recognises which page stands for which topic. Internal links also help the Google crawler capture a website completely – which alone makes them relevant for SEO.