What Is Anchor Text in SEO and How to Optimize It

This guide is for site owners, writers and SEOs who add links every week and want to get the wording right. You will learn what anchor text is, how Google uses it, which types to use where, how to audit the anchors pointing at your site, and how to rewrite weak anchors without tipping into over-optimisation.

What is anchor text?

Anchor text, also called link text, is the visible text between the opening and closing <a> tags of a link. In this HTML:

<a href="https://saadrazaseo.com/what-is-internal-linking-in-seo/">internal linking guide</a>

the anchor text is “internal linking guide”. The browser shows those words, usually underlined, and the URL stays hidden. Anchor text does two jobs at once: it tells a reader what they will get if they click, and it gives search engines a short description of the destination written by someone other than its owner.

What Google uses as anchor text

Google’s link best practices spell out a few details most guides skip:

• The text must sit inside a crawlable <a href> element. Links built only with JavaScript click handlers may not be followed at all.
• If the <a> element is empty, Google can fall back to the title attribute.
• For an image used as a link, Google uses the image’s alt attribute as the anchor. That is why writing useful alt text matters for linked logos, buttons and banners.
• If JavaScript inserts the anchor text, check the rendered HTML with the URL Inspection tool in Search Console.

Why anchor text matters for SEO

Anchor text has been a search signal since the earliest days of Google, because a link’s wording is an independent description of a page. It still matters, but in a narrower way than older SEO advice suggests.

• Relevance: anchors help Google understand what a page is about and which queries it may suit, especially for pages with little text of their own, such as PDFs or category pages.
• Site structure: descriptive internal anchors show how your pages relate, which supports topical authority across a cluster of articles.
• Usability and accessibility: screen reader users often pull up a list of every link on a page. The W3C notes that assistive technology can list links, so meaningful link text lets people choose without reading the surrounding paragraph.
• Risk: because anchors were once easy to manipulate, Google watches for unnatural patterns. Its spam policies list “links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts, or press releases distributed on other sites” as an example of link spam.

How strong is the signal?

The best public data is old but still useful. Ahrefs’ anchor text study (2019, updated 2020) looked at 384,614 pages ranking for 19,840 keywords. It found a relatively weak positive correlation between the share of exact-match anchors and rankings (an average of 0.1436), a very weak one for partial-match anchors, and effectively none for random anchors. Correlation is not cause, and top pages tend to earn descriptive links naturally. My reading, which matches what I see in audits: anchor text helps, but it is a supporting signal. The page itself, the quality of the linking site and the context around the link carry more weight.

Types of anchor text, with examples

Most guides list a long glossary of anchor types that overlap. In practice I group them into seven, shown here for a page targeting “running shoes for flat feet” on a brand called Stride.

Image links form an eighth case: the alt text becomes the anchor, so it follows the same rules. When you link a product photo, describe what the click leads to, not a list of keywords.

How to optimise anchor text: a practical process

Optimising anchor text means two different jobs: writing good anchors on your own site, and keeping the anchors that point at you natural. I treat them separately because the rules differ.

1. Internal links: be descriptive, and do not fear exact match

You control internal links, and Google expects you to describe your own pages clearly. A link to your service page that says “technical SEO audit” is simply accurate. Use the words a reader would expect, vary them naturally between articles, and link from the paragraph where the topic actually comes up. My full guide to internal linking covers placement and site structure in more depth.

2. Apply Google’s “read only the anchor” test

Google suggests reading only the anchor text, out of context, and asking whether it still tells you where the link goes. “Click here”, “this article” and “website” fail. “List of cheese types”, to use Google’s own example, passes. The same test fixes accessibility, because a screen reader’s link list shows only that text.

3. Keep it concise, and let the sentence do the rest

Two to seven words is a sensible working range. Google calls out “weirdly long” anchors that wrap an entire sentence. The words around a link also matter, so write a sentence that explains the link and keep the anchor to its core. Do not chain several links next to each other; Google notes it makes them hard to tell apart.

4. Use one clear anchor per destination on a page

If you link the same page twice in one article, use the clearer anchor first, and avoid giving two different URLs the same anchor text. Two pages linked as “SEO audit” send a confusing signal and often point to keyword cannibalisation underneath.

5. Backlinks: let the linking site choose the words

For links from other sites, the safest profile is the one you did not script. Editorial links tend to use your brand, your page title or a partial description. When you do outreach, suggest a page and let the editor phrase the link, as I describe in my step-by-step off-page SEO guide. Asking every partner for the same keyword anchor is exactly the pattern Google’s spam policies describe. My guide on link building explains which tactics still earn editorial links.

6. Match the anchor to the destination

An anchor is a promise. If “pricing” leads to a contact form, or “free audit” leads to a sales page, users bounce and trust drops. When a page changes purpose, update the anchors pointing at it.

How to audit the anchors pointing at your site

1. Start in Search Console. The Links report shows “Top linking text” for external links and lists internal links per page. It is free and comes straight from Google’s index.
2. Add a backlink tool for depth. Ahrefs, Semrush or Moz show anchors per page and per linking domain, which Search Console does not break down.
3. Group anchors by type using the table above, for your most important pages rather than the whole domain.
4. Look at the source, not just the words. Five keyword anchors from relevant industry sites are normal. Fifty from unrelated blogs with “write for us” pages are a pattern. My checklist for evaluating a backlink helps here.
5. Check internal anchors with a crawler. Screaming Frog’s anchor text export finds “click here” links, empty anchors from icon buttons, and image links with no alt text.
6. Fix what you control first. Rewrite internal anchors, ask partners to correct misleading ones, and only consider disavowing links when there is a clear paid or spammy pattern you cannot get removed.

Pace matters too. A sudden burst of new links with identical anchors stands out more than a slow, varied build, which is why I review link velocity alongside anchor mix.

Before and after: rewriting weak anchors

Common anchor text mistakes I find in audits

• Template links with keyword anchors. A footer link on every page saying “best SEO services in Pakistan” creates thousands of identical internal anchors and reads as spam to people. Navigation should use plain labels.
• Guest posts with scripted anchors. This is common in Pakistani and South Asian link markets, where sellers offer “do-follow links with your keyword”. Google names this pattern directly. My notes on guest posting that still works explain the safer approach.
• Icon-only links. Social icons, cart buttons and “back to top” arrows built as empty <a> tags with no text, title or alt.
• Anchors that no longer match. Old posts still link “2023 pricing” to a page that now covers something else, or to a URL that redirects twice.
• Over-correcting. Owners who read about penalties sometimes switch every internal link to “read more”. That throws away clarity for no benefit; internal descriptive anchors are fine.
• Chasing an anchor ratio copied from a blog. There is no official ideal mix. The forced, repeated phrasing that results often looks worse than the original. If you are worried, my guide to avoiding over-optimisation explains what to look for instead.

A note on mixed-language anchors

On Pakistani sites I often see the same page linked as “AC repair Karachi”, “AC mistri” and a Roman Urdu phrase. That variation is natural and useful, because it reflects how real people search and write. Do not “fix” it by forcing every anchor into one English keyword. Use keyword research and Search Console queries to see which terms your audience uses, and use related terms and entities rather than one repeated phrase.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Google Search Central, “Link best practices for Google” (last updated December 2025).
• Google Search Central, “Spam policies for Google web search” (last updated August 2026).
• Ahrefs, “Anchor Text: A Data-Driven Guide (384,614 Web Pages Studied)” (2019, updated 2020).
• W3C, “Understanding Success Criterion 2.4.4: Link Purpose (In Context)”, WCAG 2.2.

If your backlink profile has a history of paid or scripted links and you are not sure what to keep, my off-page SEO service starts with exactly this kind of anchor and source review. You can also send me a question about a specific page.