Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers, screen readers and search engines what they will find on the destination page. Get it right and your internal links become a map of your site. Get it wrong and you end up with dozens of “click here” links, or worse, a pattern of repetitive keyword-stuffed anchors that looks manipulative.
This guide covers the five anchor text types, side-by-side examples of good versus over-optimized usage, and a short audit method you can run on any site to catch vague or repetitive link text. Someone has put together a good summary of it.
What Is Anchor Text in SEO?
Anchor text (also called link text or link label) is the part of a hyperlink that users actually see and click. In HTML, it sits between the opening and closing <a> tags:
<a href='https://pixelbright.net/services/web-design/'>custom web design services</a>Here, custom web design services is the anchor text and the URL in href is the destination. The two are different things: the hyperlink is the connection, the anchor text is the label on it.
Why Anchor Text Matters
- Context for search engines. Google uses link text as a signal about the topic of the page being linked to, both from your own pages and from other sites.
- Context for readers. People scan pages. Descriptive links tell them whether a click is worth their time.
- Accessibility. Screen reader users can pull up a list of all links on a page. A list of twelve “read more” entries is useless. A list of descriptive labels is a navigation tool.
- Crawling and discovery. Internal links with meaningful anchors help search engines understand how your pages relate to each other.
The 5 Types of Anchor Text (With Examples)
Imagine you are linking to a page at pixelbright.net/services/wordpress-maintenance/ that targets the phrase “WordPress maintenance”.
| Type | Example | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Exact match | WordPress maintenance | Sparingly, when the phrase genuinely fits the sentence. Strongest signal, highest risk if repeated. |
| Partial match | monthly maintenance plan for WordPress sites | Your default choice. Descriptive, natural, still topically clear. |
| Branded | PixelBright, PixelBright maintenance service | Homepage links, author bios, citations, press mentions. The safest anchor type of all. |
| Generic | click here, read more, this page, learn more | Almost never in body copy. Acceptable only where surrounding context is unmistakable. |
| Naked URL | https://pixelbright.net/services/wordpress-maintenance/ | Citations, references, documentation, printable pages. |
Two Bonus Categories Worth Knowing
- Image anchors: when a link wraps an image, the
alttext acts as the anchor text. An image link with an empty alt attribute is an anchor with no label. - Long-tail or sentence anchors: a full clause used as the link, such as “why a staging environment saves you from broken updates”. These read naturally and often perform well for both users and search.
Good vs Over-Optimized: Side by Side
The difference is rarely the words themselves. It is repetition, forced placement and density.
| Over-optimized | Better version | Why |
|---|---|---|
| “Need help? Our cheap web design agency London can help. Contact our cheap web design agency London today.” | “Need help? Have a look at our web design packages or get in touch with the team.” | Same phrase repeated twice in two sentences reads like it was written for a crawler. |
| “To learn about site speed, click here. For hosting info, click here. For our prices, click here.” | “Start with our page speed checklist, then compare managed hosting options and current pricing.” | Generic anchors give zero context and break accessibility. |
| Eight internal links on one page, all with the anchor “anchor text seo”. | One or two links to that page, with anchors like “anchor text best practices” and “how to write link text”. | Varied anchors describe different facets of the same page and look natural. |
| “We build ecommerce websites ecommerce web design ecommerce store development for brands.” | “We build ecommerce websites for retail brands.” | Stacked keywords inside a single anchor is classic stuffing. |
| A 40-word paragraph turned into one giant link. | A 3 to 7 word phrase inside that paragraph. | Huge anchors dilute meaning and are harder to tap on mobile. |
How to Write Anchor Text for Internal Links
Internal links are the part of anchor text SEO you fully control, which is exactly why they deserve the most attention. Rules that work in practice:
- Describe the destination, not the action. “See our pricing table” beats “click here to see our pricing”.
- Keep it between 2 and 7 words. Long enough to be specific, short enough to scan.
- Vary anchors pointing at the same page. If three articles link to your maintenance page, use three different but related phrases.
- Link from inside sentences. Anchors that sit naturally in a sentence tend to be both more descriptive and more clicked than a standalone “Read more” line.
- Never make two different links share the same anchor text on the same page. If two links say “our services” but point to different URLs, you have created confusion for users and crawlers.
- Do not link on words like “here”, “this” or a single punctuation-heavy fragment. They carry no meaning out of context.
- Match user language, not internal jargon. Link to “appointment booking system”, not “Module BK-2 documentation”.
Menus, Buttons and Breadcrumbs
Navigation links are anchor text too. Designers often overlook this. A few practical points:
- Buttons built with
<a>tags should have real labels: “Book a free audit” rather than “Submit”. - Icon-only links need an
aria-labelor visually hidden text so they are not anonymous. - Breadcrumb links naturally produce clean, descriptive anchors. Use them.
- Card layouts often link the image, the title and a “Read more” button to the same URL. Three links to one destination is redundant. Link the title and the image, and make the image alt text meaningful or empty if the title already covers it.
Anchor Text for External and Outbound Links
When you link out to another site, treat the anchor as a favour to your reader: name the source clearly. “According to Google Search Central documentation on link best practices” is far more useful than “according to this article“.
Also remember the link attributes:
| Attribute | Use it for |
|---|---|
rel='sponsored' |
Paid placements, affiliate links, sponsored mentions. |
rel='ugc' |
Links inside comments and user-generated content. |
rel='nofollow' |
Links you do not want associated with your site as an endorsement. |
Backlink Anchors: The Part You Do Not Control
Anchor text on links pointing to you from other websites is a stronger signal, and also the riskiest area. You cannot dictate what others write, and you should not try to force it at scale. Warning signs of an unnatural backlink profile:
- A high share of exact-match commercial anchors (“buy cheap X online”) from unrelated sites.
- Dozens of domains using the exact same anchor phrase word for word.
- Anchors in a language your site does not publish in.
- Almost no branded or naked URL anchors at all. Real, organic profiles are dominated by brand names and URLs.
There is no official ratio published by Google. As a sanity check, most healthy profiles skew heavily toward branded, naked URL and generic anchors, with exact-match commercial anchors as a small minority. If you can see the pattern from a spreadsheet in ten seconds, so can a spam classifier.
A 20-Minute Anchor Text Audit You Can Run Today
This works for a blog, a portfolio site or a client project. No paid tool required for the basic version.
- Export your internal links. Crawl the site with a desktop crawler (Screaming Frog free tier covers up to 500 URLs) or use Google Search Console’s Links report for a rough view. Export the “All Anchor Text” or “Inlinks” list.
- Build a frequency table. Drop the anchor column into a spreadsheet and create a pivot table counting each unique anchor. Sort descending.
- Flag the generics. Filter for: click here, read more, learn more, here, this, this page, link, more info, see more, download. Every hit is a rewrite candidate.
- Flag the repeaters. Any commercial phrase appearing on a large share of your internal links pointing to a single money page is a red flag. Aim for variety, not a single template.
- Flag the empties. Look for image links with no alt text and links whose anchor is a bare icon or whitespace. Crawlers report these as empty anchors.
- Flag the duplicates-with-different-targets. Same anchor text, two different destination URLs, on the same page. Rename one.
- Check the orphans in reverse. Sort by destination URL. Which important pages receive very few internal links, or only vague ones? Those need better anchors from relevant articles.
- Rewrite in batches. Start with your top 20 pages by traffic. Rewriting anchors on high-traffic pages moves the needle fastest.
- Spot check with a screen reader. Use VoiceOver on macOS or NVDA on Windows to list all links on a key page. If the list makes no sense on its own, your anchors are not descriptive enough.
- Set a recurring reminder. Re-run the audit every quarter, or after any large content migration.
Quick Fix Cheat Sheet
| If you find… | Replace with… |
|---|---|
| click here | the title or topic of the target page |
| read more | read the full case study on [project name] |
| learn more | how our maintenance plans work |
| download | download the 2026 accessibility checklist (PDF, 480 KB) |
| an entire long URL in body copy | the page name, with the URL kept for references only |
Common Anchor Text Mistakes
- Linking the same phrase 10 times on one page. One link per destination per page is usually enough.
- Hiding anchors in white text or off-screen. Deceptive and a direct policy violation.
- Using page titles verbatim every single time. It works, but it produces monotonous anchor profiles. Vary the phrasing.
- Forgetting the surrounding sentence. The words around a link help interpret it. A well-written sentence does half the work.
- Automated internal linking plugins on default settings. They love exact-match repetition. If you use one, cap the number of replacements per page and review the output.
- Ignoring mobile tap targets. Two-character anchors are hard to tap. Give links enough surface area.
A Simple Rule to Finish
Write the sentence first, then decide which words in it best describe the destination, then wrap those words in the link. If you had to rewrite the sentence to squeeze a keyword in, you have crossed from anchor text SEO into over-optimization. Good link text should be invisible in the sense that nobody notices it was optimized, and obvious in the sense that everyone knows where it goes.
FAQ
What is anchor text in SEO?
Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. Search engines use it as a description of the linked page, and users rely on it to decide whether to click. In HTML it is the content placed between the <a href='...'> and </a> tags.
What is a good anchor text?
A good anchor is short (roughly 2 to 7 words), descriptive of the destination page, natural inside the sentence, and different from other anchors used elsewhere for the same target. “Our WordPress maintenance plans” is good. “Click here” is not.
What is the difference between anchor text and a hyperlink?
The hyperlink is the whole element, including the destination URL in the href attribute. The anchor text is only the visible label a user reads and clicks. saynine.ai walks through the specifics.
How many types of anchor text are there?
The five commonly used categories are exact match, partial match, branded, generic and naked URL. Image links (where alt text acts as the anchor) and long-tail sentence anchors are often listed as additional variations.
Is exact match anchor text bad for SEO?
Not by itself. Exact match anchors are fine when used occasionally and when they fit naturally. Problems appear when the same commercial phrase is repeated across many internal links or across many backlinks, which looks manipulative rather than editorial.
Does anchor text matter for internal links?
Yes. Internal anchors are fully under your control and help search engines understand what each page is about and how pages relate to each other. They are usually the fastest anchor text SEO improvement available on an existing site.
Should I use “click here” ever?
Avoid it in body copy. It provides no context for search engines and makes a page harder to use with a screen reader. If a call to action button truly needs a short label, make it action plus object, such as “Book a free audit”. Full details on https://designplus.co.
How do I check the anchor text of links pointing to my site?
Google Search Console shows a sample of external link anchors under Links, then “Top linking text”. Third-party tools like Ahrefs, Semrush or Majestic provide fuller backlink anchor breakdowns.