Anchor Text

Anchor text is the human-readable portion of an HTML link—the words between the opening and closing anchor tags. Search engines use anchor text as a relevance signal, treating it as a vote that the linked page is about whatever topic the anchor text describes. If many sites link to a page with anchor text like "best coffee makers," that page gains authority for that query.

In SEO practice, anchor text strategy matters in two places: internal links within your own site, where you have full control and should use descriptive text that helps users and engines understand page relationships; and backlinks from external sites, where you want to earn relevant anchor text but have less control. Over-optimized anchor text (stuffing exact-match keywords everywhere) can trigger spam signals, while natural variation and brand mentions look legitimate.

The four common anchor text types are exact match ("blue widgets"), partial match ("best blue widgets"), branded ("Acme Inc."), and naked URL. Most high-performing pages get a mix, with branded and exact-match anchors making up a smaller portion of the overall link profile.