Anchor Text SEO Best Practices | A Complete Guide

I’m going to let you in on a little SEO secret.

For all the noise and all the millions of articles about “getting more backlinks,” most people are completely ignoring the part that actually does half the work. It’s the part that’s so small, so simple, it’s easy to overlook.

I’m talking about the clickable text. The little blue words. The anchor text.

In today’s insanely complex world of SEO, mastering anchor text SEO best practices isn’t just a “nice to have.” It’s a flat-out requirement for survival. This isn’t just a tactic; it’s a fundamental.

This is the one thing that separates a link that confuses Google from a link that tells Google exactly what your page is about and why it deserves to be #1. It’s a signal of trust, relevance, and authority, all packed into a few words.

Get it right? You’re a hero. Get it wrong? You’re invisible. Or worse, you’re in the Google penalty box.

Don’t sweat it. I’ve spent years of my life in the SEO trenches—testing, failing, and figuring out what actually moves the needle. This guide is everything I’ve learned.

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Key Takeaways

Before we dive deep, here are the absolute, non-negotiable essentials:

• Relevance is Your #1 Job: The anchor text must accurately describe the page you’re linking to. This is the golden rule. No exceptions.
• Diversity is Your Shield: A “natural” link profile is a diverse one. You need a healthy cocktail of branded, partial-match, and naked URL anchors. Over-optimizing one type is a massive red flag.
• It’s for Humans First: Always, always remember you’re writing for a person, not a bot. The link has to make sense in the sentence. It has to set a clear expectation.
• Internal vs. External is Night and Day: You have 100% control over your internal links. You can (and should) be strategic. External links (backlinks) are wild. You can’t control them, and they should look varied.
• Just Don’t Use “Click Here”: Generic anchors like “click here” or “read more” are a complete waste. They offer zero SEO value. It’s a massive missed opportunity. Be descriptive.

What Exactly Is Anchor Text, Anyway?

Let’s get right down to basics. No jargon.

Anchor text is simply the visible, clickable text you see in a hyperlink. When you’re reading an article and see that string of blue, underlined words that whisks you away to another page? That’s anchor text.

Simple as that. It’s the “anchor” holding the link in place.

Why should I care about these little blue links?

So, why all the fuss over a few blue words? Because Google is obsessed with them.

A lot.

Before search engines got as terrifyingly smart as they are today, they needed clues to figure out what a webpage was about. They couldn’t “read” a page like you and I can. Not really. So, they used signals.

And one of the strongest signals they found? Looking at what other people said about a page.

How’d they measure that? By looking at the anchor text people used when linking to it.

Think about it. If a hundred different websites all link to a single page using the anchor text “best dog food,” Google can be pretty darn sure that page is about… well, the best dog food. As a result, that page’s ranking for that exact term would shoot up. It’s a powerful voting system. Every link is a vote, and the anchor text is the reason for that vote.

Is anchor text the same as a hyperlink?

Not quite, though you’ll hear people mix them up all the time. It’s more of a parent-child relationship.

The “hyperlink” is the whole chunk of code. It has two main parts:

1. The URL (or href): This is the destination address (e.g., https://www.example.com/best-page).
2. The Anchor Text: This is the visible part you click (e.g., “this awesome page”).

So, the hyperlink is the entire mechanism. The anchor text is just the visible “handle” you grab.

Where do I actually see anchor text in HTML?

If you were to peek “under the hood” at the raw HTML code of a webpage, a link looks just like this:

<a href="https://www.yourwebsite.com/your-page">This is the Anchor Text</a>

• The <a> tag (which stands for “anchor”) is what kicks the whole thing off.
• The href attribute (which stands for “hyperlink reference”) holds the destination URL.
• The text between the opening <a> tag and the closing </a> tag? That’s your anchor text.

It’s such a simple piece of code. But it has truly massive SEO implications.

Why Does Google Care So Much About Anchor Text?

To really get the “why” behind anchor text SEO best practices, we need to hop in the time machine for a second. Google’s entire empire was built on a brilliant algorithm called PageRank. The genius of PageRank was that it didn’t just count links; it weighed them.

And a huge part of that weight came from the anchor text.

How did anchor text become a major ranking factor?

In the early, wild-west days of the web, search engines were pretty bad. They mostly just scanned the words on a page to figure it out. Then Google came along.

Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had a new idea: a link from Page A to Page B is a “vote” by Page A for Page B. This was PageRank.

But they took it one critical step further. They realized the anchor text used in that “vote” was a powerful, third-party description of what Page B was about. This changed everything. It was like getting a referral from a friend. If your friend says, “You have to go to this specific taco shop,” you’re not just getting an address; you’re getting a strong recommendation for tacos. The anchor text was that recommendation.

This led to some… interesting results. For a while, you could get almost any page to rank for any term just by pointing enough links at it with that term as the anchor. And of course, people abused this. Famously, pranksters used it for “Google bombing,” making the White House biography of George W. Bush rank for the term “miserable failure.”

That’s how powerful anchor text was.

What does anchor text tell Google today?

Google is infinitely smarter now. It understands context, synonyms, and user intent thanks to advanced AI. It no longer relies only on anchor text.

But make no mistake. Anchor text is still a crucial signal.

Today, it provides two vital pieces of information:

1. Relevance: It gives Google’s crawler a “scent” to follow. It tells Google what to expect before it even follows the link. If the anchor is “guide to blue widgets,” Google expects to land on a page about blue widgets. If it lands on a page about red sneakers, that’s a confusing, low-quality signal.
2. Authority: When many different, high-quality, trusted sites all link to your page with similar (but not identical) relevant anchors, it builds immense topical authority. It’s Google’s way of hearing a consensus: “Hey, not just one person, but all these experts agree this page is the definitive resource on this topic.”

Can bad anchor text actually hurt my site?

Oh, yes. You’d better believe it.

Because anchor text was so powerful, it became the number one tool for spammers. They would build (or buy) thousands of trash-tier links from spammy sites, all pointing to their money page with the exact anchor text “buy cheap widgets now.”

And for a while, it worked. It also completely destroyed the quality of Google’s search results.

So, in 2012, Google dropped the hammer: the Google Penguin update. This algorithm was built for one reason: to find and penalize sites that were manipulating their rankings with spammy links and, you guessed it, over-optimized anchor text.

Sites that had built their rankings on a house of cards made of exact-match anchors were wiped off the first page—and often out of the index entirely—overnight. It was an extinction-level event for low-quality SEO. Today, Penguin is part of Google’s core algorithm. It’s always watching. If your anchor text profile looks unnatural, you won’t just fail to rank. You’ll be actively penalized.

What Are the Different Types of Anchor Text I Should Know?

If you want to build a “natural” profile—one that Google trusts—you need to know what’s in your toolbox. Your anchor text “portfolio” needs to be diverse, just like a healthy investment portfolio. Relying too much on any one type is just asking for trouble.

Here are the main types you’ll see in the wild:

• Exact Match: The anchor text is the exact target keyword for the page you’re linking to.
  • Example: Linking to a page about “red running shoes” with the anchor text “red running shoes.”
  • Use Case: This is the nuclear option. It’s very powerful, but also very risky. These should be used extremely sparingly in your backlink profile. You can be more liberal with them for your internal links.
• Partial Match (or Phrase Match): The anchor text includes your target keyword plus some other words.
  • Example: Linking to that same page with “our favorite red running shoes for men” or “a guide to red running shoes.”
  • Use Case: This is the sweet spot. It’s highly relevant, it tells Google the topic, but it looks much more natural and less manipulative than an exact match.
• Branded: The anchor text is simply your brand name.
  • Example: “We trust the team at My SEO Agency” (linking to myseoagency.com).
  • Use Case: This is arguably the most important and safest anchor type. A healthy backlink profile for any real business will be dominated by branded anchors. It builds brand authority and, most importantly, trust.
• Naked URL: The anchor text is the literal URL of the destination page.
  • Example: “You can find more info at https://www.google.com/search?q=https.www.example.com/page.”
  • Use Case: These are incredibly natural. This is how people often link to things in forums, social media, or in resource sections. You should have a good chunk of these in your profile.
• Generic (or “Stopword”): The anchor text is a generic, non-descriptive call-to-action.
  • Example: “Click here,” “Read more,” “Learn more,” “This post,” “Website.”
  • Use Case: These provide almost zero direct SEO value. But, having a small percentage of them is natural. That said, you should actively avoid using them on your own site.
• Image Anchors: This one’s a bit different. When you link an image, Google uses the image’s “alt text” as the anchor text.
  • Example: <a href="page.html"><img src="image.jpg" alt="this is the anchor text"></a>
  • Use Case: This is a huge, often-missed SEO opportunity. Always write descriptive, keyword-relevant alt text for your images, especially if they’re clickable.

What Are the Real “Anchor Text SEO Best Practices” for 2025?

Okay, we’ve got the what and the why. Let’s get to the how. How do we take all this theory and build a strategy that actually works today? This is where we separate the pros from the amateurs.

So, what’s the golden rule for anchor text?

I’ll say this again, because it’s the most important part of this whole guide: Relevance is the golden rule.

Your anchor text must be relevant to the page it’s linking to. A link is a promise to the user. The anchor text is that promise. “Click this, and you will get this.”

If you break that promise, the user gets frustrated. They hit the back button.

Google sees that. It sees the user pogo-sticking back to the search results to find a better answer. This is a massive signal to Google that your page is a bad result. You’ve created a poor user experience, and Google will demote you for it.

So, your anchor text must always be an honest, accurate, and compelling description of the linked page.

How specific should my anchor text be?

Be as specific as you possibly can be without sounding like a robot.

Put yourself in the user’s shoes. Which of these is more helpful?

1. “We wrote an article about our recent findings.”
2. “We broke down our findings in our new case study on local SEO performance.”

It’s the second one, and it’s not even close. It sets a crystal-clear expectation. The user knows they’re about to read a case study specifically about local SEO performance. This pre-frames their mindset, and they’re way more likely to actually engage with the content.

For Google, this is a beautiful thing. The anchor “case study on local SEO performance” is packed with relevant keywords and context. It’s a win-win.

Does the text around the link matter too?

Yes! This is a more advanced tip, but it’s critical. Google doesn’t just read the anchor text; it reads the entire sentence and paragraph surrounding the link. This is called “co-occurrence” or “surrounding text.”

Google uses this surrounding text to confirm the link’s context.

Imagine you read this: “We love using many different tools. For keyword research, our favorite is Ahrefs. But for backlink audits, we always turn to this amazing platform.” (linking to Semrush).

Here, the anchor “this amazing platform” is totally generic. But the surrounding text (“backlink audits”) gives Google all the context it needs. It understands that “this amazing platform” is a tool related to backlink audits.

This is why, even if you get a generic anchor, you can still get immense SEO value if the content it’s placed in is high-quality and topically relevant.

How do I avoid looking spammy to Google?

The key is to think like a human, not a spam-bot. How would you naturally link to a great resource if you weren’t trying to game the system?

You probably wouldn’t use the same five-word keyword phrase every single time. You’d link to their brand name. You’d use a natural phrase like, “I read this awesome guide on anchor text…” You might just copy and paste the URL. You’d link to different pages on their site, not just their one “money” page.

Looking spammy is all about lazy, repetitive patterns. Spammers use the same anchor text, from the same types of sites, all pointing to the same page.

A natural profile is beautifully messy. It’s diverse. It has branded anchors, partial-match anchors, naked URLs, and even a few (just a few!) generic ones. This healthy, diverse distribution is exactly what Google’s algorithm is trained to look for.

What is a “natural” anchor text profile, and how do I get one?

There’s no “magic formula” here. There are no perfect percentages that work for everyone. It varies by industry, by site, and even by page.

That said, a healthy backlink profile (links from other sites to you) generally leans in this direction:

• Branded Anchors: 50%+
• Partial-Match/Phrase: 15-20%
• Naked URLs: 15-20%
• Generic Anchors: 1-5%
• Exact-Match Anchors: <1%

The big, flashing takeaway? Your brand should be your primary anchor.

I remember when I first started my agency, I was obsessed with getting “best SEO services” links. I thought that was the secret. But I quickly learned my brand was my most powerful asset. People started searching for “My Agency Name,” not just “best SEO services.” That’s when it clicked. Branded anchors build a moat around your business. When people link to your brand, they’re endorsing you, not just a keyword. That’s real authority.

Let’s Talk About Internal Linking. How Do Anchors Play a Role?

Everything we’ve discussed so far applies to all links. But the rules are different for internal links (the links from your site to other pages on your site).

With internal links, you are in 100% control. This is your chance to be the chief architect of your own site, guiding both users and Google exactly where you want them to go.

Why is internal linking so important for SEO?

Internal linking is, hands down, the most underrated SEO tactic out there. It does three critical things:

1. Distributes PageRank: It passes “link juice” or authority from your strong pages (like your homepage) to your deeper, more important pages (like a service page that needs a boost).
2. Helps Google Understand Site Structure: It creates a logical map of your site, showing Google which pages are the “pillars” and which are the supporting “clusters.”
3. Improves User Experience: It guides your visitors on a logical journey, keeping them on your site longer and moving them toward conversion.

And the anchor text is the steering wheel for all of it.

Can I be more aggressive with anchor text for my own pages?

Yes. You absolutely can. And you should.

Because you control the entire ecosystem, Google doesn’t see strategic internal anchor text as “spammy.” You’re not trying to trick Google; you’re helping Google by clearly organizing your own content.

For your internal links, you can safely use far more exact-match and partial-match anchors.

For example, if I’m writing a blog post about “link building strategies,” I should absolutely link from that post to my main “Link Building Services” page. And I should use a rich, descriptive anchor like “our professional link building services” or even a direct “link building service.”

This sends a crystal-clear signal to Google: “This blog post is related to this service page. This service page is the most important page on my site about this topic.”

How can I use internal anchors to build topic clusters?

This is the high-level strategy. A “topic cluster” is a model where you have one central “Pillar Page” (a big, comprehensive guide on a broad topic, like “Local SEO”). You then create several “Cluster Pages” (shorter articles on related, long-tail topics, like “Google Business Profile optimization” or “local citation building”).

Here’s the magic: You then link from all those Cluster Pages back to the Pillar Page using strategic, relevant anchor text.

This creates a powerful, interconnected web of content. It signals to Google that your Pillar Page is the definitive authority on the topic, funneling all the relevance from your supporting articles right to your main money page. The anchor text is the glue that holds that whole cluster together.

What’s a common mistake people make with internal links?

Using “click here.” It drives me nuts.

I’ll never forget this one client who came to me. Brilliant guy, amazing content. But his site was a ghost town. His rankings were nowhere.

Why?

He had linked to his main service page from hundreds of high-quality blog posts using… “click here.”

I wanted to pull my hair out.

Think about what Google saw: hundreds of internal links with the anchor “click here,” all pointing to one page. What does that tell Google? Absolutely nothing. It tells Google the page is about “clicking here.” It’s a massive, tragic, wasted opportunity.

We spent a month just fixing their internal anchors to be descriptive and keyword-rich. Their service page rankings jumped 15 spots. No new content. No new backlinks. Just smart internal linking. That was a huge ‘a-ha’ moment for me, and I hope it is for you, too.

What About Backlinks? How Do I Control Anchor Text from Other Sites?

This is the tricky part. When another person links to your site from their site, you have very little direct control over the anchor text they choose.

And that’s okay.

In fact, that’s what makes it a natural link.

Can I really control external anchor text?

Not directly, and you really shouldn’t try to. Micromanaging your anchor text is a fast track to creating an unnatural, spammy-looking profile. You should never email a webmaster who linked to you and say, “Hey, thanks for the link, but can you please change the anchor text to ‘best widgets in miami’?”

That’s a manipulative request. It also creates a written record of you attempting to manipulate PageRank, which is a direct violation of Google’s link schemes guidelines. Just don’t do it.

The 10% of the time you can influence it is during active outreach, like when you’re writing a guest post.

What should I do in my guest posting outreach?

When you write a guest post for another website, you typically get to include a link back to your site in your author bio, and sometimes within the content itself. This is your chance to strategically place an anchor.

But even here, diversity is your friend. Don’t use the same exact-match anchor on every guest post you write. That’s an obvious, lazy footprint that Google can spot from a mile away.

Mix it up!

• On one, use your brand name.
• On another, use a partial-match phrase.
• On a third, use a “branded hybrid” like “our team at [Your Brand].”

The goal is to gently guide your profile in a healthy direction, not to hammer one keyword into the ground.

What if I get a bunch of spammy, low-quality anchor links?

First, don’t panic. This happens to every single website. It’s sometimes called “negative SEO,” but more often, it’s just random web scrapers and spam bots doing their thing.

Google is very, very good at identifying and simply ignoring these types of links. For the most part, you don’t need to do a single thing. They’re toxic, but Google has already put them in quarantine.

If you see a massive, sudden influx of spammy links, or you’ve received a rare manual action penalty from Google, then you can look into the Disavow Tool. But for 99% of site owners, the best course of action is to ignore them and focus on building good links to outweigh the bad.

How do I even check my backlink anchor text profile?

You’ll need a third-party tool for this. Google Search Console won’t give you a comprehensive list. The main players in this space are tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz.

Inside these tools, you can run a report on your domain, go to the “Backlink Profile” section, and find a report specifically for “Anchors.”

This will give you a complete list of all the anchor text used in links pointing to your site, sorted by frequency. This is your “anchor text profile.” Staring at this list for 10 minutes will tell you more about your site’s health than almost any other report.

What Are the Big Red Flags Google Hates?

Let’s flip the script. We know what to do. What should we absolutely not do? Here are the cardinal sins of anchor text that will get you penalized.

What’s the fastest way to get a Penguin penalty?

Easy. Go to a link farm or a cheap “pro” link-building service and buy 1,000 links, all with the exact-match anchor “best personal injury lawyer” pointing to your homepage.

I can almost guarantee your site will be penalized, if not de-indexed, within months.

This is the most obvious, amateurish, and dangerous “SEO” in the book. It’s a clear, deliberate attempt to manipulate search rankings. Google’s algorithms are built to catch this exact behavior. Any “unnatural velocity” of links combined with an “unnatural anchor text distribution” is a five-alarm fire.

Is it bad to link to the same page with the same anchor text over and over?

Yes. Even on your own site.

This is a common internal linking mistake. People identify their “money” page and their “money” keyword. Then they go through every single blog post on their site and cram in a link to that page with that exact anchor text.

This doesn’t look smart; it looks like internal spam. Remember, relevance is key. If you’re on a post about “car maintenance,” it’s not relevant to shoehorn in a link for “best personal injury lawyer.”

But even if the posts are all relevant, using the exact same anchor text every time is a missed opportunity. You’re telling Google that page is only about one exact phrase, rather than a topic.

Mix up your internal anchors. Use partial matches, long-tail variations, and synonyms. This builds broader topical authority, not just a narrow keyword ranking.

What about hidden links or deceptive anchors?

This is old-school black-hat SEO that will get you banned. This includes:

• Hidden Links: Making a link the same color as the background, or making it a tiny, invisible character like a period.
• Deceptive Anchors: Using an anchor like “download your free e-book” that actually links to a product sales page.

This isn’t just bad SEO; it’s a terrible, deceptive user experience. It breaks trust and violates every guideline in the book. Don’t even think about it.

How Do I Audit My Own Site’s Anchor Text?

Okay, time to get your hands dirty. An anchor text audit is a crucial health check for your website. It’s how you find problems before they become penalties.

What tools do I need for an anchor text audit?

You’ll need two types of tools:

1. A Backlink Checker: Like we just talked about: Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz. This is for auditing your external anchor text (what other sites are saying about you).
2. A Site Crawler: Screaming Frog SEO Spider is the industry standard (they have a free version). This is for auditing your internal anchor text (how you are linking to yourself).

What am I looking for in my backlink profile?

When you export that anchor text report from Ahrefs or Semrush, you’re hunting for red flags.

• Over-optimization: Is your profile 50% “exact match” anchors? If so, you’ve got a problem. You need to dilute this, fast, by building more high-quality links with branded and naked URL anchors.
• Spammy Text: Are your top anchors filled with spammy or irrelevant terms (like “buy viagra,” “cheap rolex,” etc.)? This is a sign you’ve been hacked or are the target of a negative SEO attack.
• Lack of Brand: Is your brand name nowhere to be found in your top 20 anchors? This is a sign of an “unnatural” profile. It means people aren’t linking to you as a brand, which is a problem.

How do I find and fix my internal anchor text?

This is where Screaming Frog is your best friend. You’ll run a crawl on your own site. When it’s done, go to the “Bulk Exports” menu at the top, and find “All Outlinks.”

This will give you a giant spreadsheet of every single link on your site pointing to another page (both internal and external). It will have columns for “Source,” “Destination,” and “Anchor Text.”

Now, you can filter this spreadsheet to find all your internal links. You’re looking for:

• Generic Anchors: Filter the “Anchor Text” column for “click here,” “read more,” etc. Find every single instance and go to that “Source” page to change it to something descriptive.
• Redirected Links: Find any internal links pointing to a URL that redirects (a 301). You should update this link to point directly to the final, correct destination.
• Wasted Opportunities: Look at the links pointing to your most important service or product pages. Are the anchors wimpy and vague? Go beef them up with relevant, partial-match keywords.

What if I find bad backlinks? Should I disavow them?

My stance on the Disavow Tool is to treat it like a loaded gun. Don’t touch it unless you are an expert and you are 100% sure you have to.

As I said before, Google is smart. It ignores the vast majority of spammy links. By disavowing them, you are basically telling Google, “Hey, pay attention to these links! They’re bad!” You might accidentally make the problem worse or, more commonly, disavow a link that was actually helping you.

My advice: Unless you have a manual action penalty, just ignore the bad links. Spend your time, money, and energy on building good links. A single great link from a high-authority site will outweigh a thousand spammy links. Focus on positive action, not on pruning the negative.

Putting It All Together: My Personal Anchor Text Philosophy

After all these years, my strategy has boiled down to one simple idea.

What’s the one thing I want you to remember?

Write for humans, first. Optimize for Google, second.

An anchor text is, at its core, a piece of user interface. Its job is to help a human being navigate from one piece of information to another. If your anchor text is clear, helpful, and relevant, you are 90% of the way there.

Does it set the right expectation? Is it natural in the sentence? Does it help the reader?

If you can answer “yes” to all three, you’re practicing good anchor text SEO.

How has my own strategy evolved over the years?

Like a lot of SEOs, I started out chasing algorithms. I was obsessed with exact-match ratios and keyword density. I had spreadsheets. It was all very mechanical.

Penguin changed that. It forced all of us to stop “building links” and start “earning” them.

My strategy today is almost entirely focused on two things:

1. Internal Linking Architecture: I spend a ton of time making sure my own site is a perfectly organized, inter-linked web of content. I control this 100%, and it’s my biggest lever for ranking new pages.
2. Brand-Building: My external link-building efforts are now 90% focused on getting my brand mentioned and linked on high-authority sites. I want people to link to “My Agency” because they trust us. The branded anchors that result from this are pure, unassailable authority.

Is anchor text still as important as it used to be?

Yes. And no.

No, it’s not the “cheat code” it was in 2010. You can’t just point 100 exact-match anchors at a page and rank #1 anymore. Thank goodness.

But yes, it’s arguably more important as a signal of quality and context.

Google’s AI is all about understanding relationships. Anchor text is a primary-source-document that defines the relationship between two pages. It’s the “why” behind the link.

In a web that’s getting noisier and more full of low-quality AI content, these human-curated, contextual signals are more valuable than ever.

So, don’t obsess over it. Don’t over-optimize it. Just be smart. Be relevant. Be helpful. Get those fundamentals right, and you’ll have mastered one of the most enduring, powerful, and important parts of SEO.

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