Anchor text is the clickable text of a link. It tells readers what they'll find if they click, and it tells Google something about the page being linked to. That makes it useful for SEO, and also easy to overdo. Stuffing exact-match keywords into anchor text was one of the most abused tactics in early SEO, and Google has been discounting and penalizing it for over a decade. This guide covers what good anchor text looks like according to Google's own guidelines, how to use it for internal links where you have full control, and how to think about it for backlinks where you mostly don't.
What Anchor Text Does
In this HTML, the anchor text is "canonical tags guide":
<a href="canonical-tags-explained.html">canonical tags guide</a>
Anchor text serves two audiences. For readers, it sets expectations about what's on the other side of the link. For Google, it's a clue about the linked page's topic. Google's link best practices say that good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to both the page it's on and the page it links to.
Google also notes that the words before and after a link matter, so the surrounding sentence gives context too. Anchor text isn't working alone.
Types of Anchor Text
- Exact match: the target page's primary keyword, word for word. For example, "keyword difficulty" linking to a keyword difficulty guide.
- Partial match: includes the keyword along with other words, such as "how keyword difficulty scores work."
- Descriptive: describes the page's content naturally, without targeting a keyword specifically, such as "this guide to judging whether you can rank."
- Branded: the site or brand name, such as "TopWebPositions."
- Naked URL: the URL itself, such as "topwebpositions.com."
- Generic: text with no topic information, such as "click here," "read more," or "this page."
- Image links: when an image is linked, its alt text acts as the anchor text.
What Google Says About Anchor Text
Google's documentation on link best practices is specific:
- Be descriptive. Generic phrases like "click here" and "read more" are given as bad examples. A good test is to read only the anchor text, out of context, and ask whether it tells you what the linked page is about.
- Be reasonably concise. Anchor text that runs a full sentence or longer is labeled as bad. Use a short phrase that names the destination.
- Don't stuff keywords. Google advises resisting the urge to cram every keyword into anchor text, and states that keyword stuffing is a violation of its spam policies.
- Avoid chaining links. Several links in a row with no separation make it hard for readers to tell them apart.
Anchor Text for Internal Links
Internal links are where anchor text optimization really happens, because you write every one of them. The internal linking strategy guide covers the broader approach. Here's how to handle the anchor text itself.
Use descriptive anchors that include the topic
For internal links, descriptive anchors that naturally include the target page's topic are exactly what Google recommends. "Our guide to XML sitemaps" is better than "click here." This is not over-optimization. It's simply describing where the link goes.
Vary the wording naturally
If twenty pages link to your XML sitemap guide, they don't all need identical anchor text. Let the anchor fit the sentence: "XML sitemap guide," "how to structure a sitemap," "submitting your sitemap." Natural variation reads better, and it describes different aspects of the page.
Keep each anchor pointing to one page per topic
If you use "keyword research" to link to three different pages, you're sending mixed signals about which page covers that topic. Decide which page owns each topic, and point topic-specific anchors there. This connects directly to avoiding keyword cannibalization and to the structure of topic clusters.
Fix generic anchors on important links
"Read more" buttons and "click here" links waste the opportunity to describe the destination. Where they link to important pages, rewrite them or add a descriptive in-text link alongside.
Mind your navigation and image links
Navigation menus, footers, and breadcrumbs are internal links too, and their labels act as anchor text across your entire site. Use clear, descriptive labels. For linked images, such as logo links and product images, write meaningful alt text, because it serves as the link's anchor text. The image SEO guide covers alt text in detail.
Anchor Text for Backlinks
You don't control the anchor text other sites use to link to you, and that's mostly a good thing. A natural backlink profile is varied because different people describe your page in different ways.
What a natural profile looks like
When people link to a site on their own, branded anchors, naked URLs, and descriptive phrases tend to dominate. Exact-match keyword anchors appear, but usually as a minority. There's no official ideal ratio, and you shouldn't chase one. What stands out as unnatural is a profile where a large share of links use the same commercial keyword phrase, because editorial links rarely look like that.
Why exact-match link building is risky
Google's 2012 Penguin update specifically targeted sites that built large numbers of links with exact-match anchor text, and its spam policies still treat manipulative link building as link spam. Asking for, buying, or arranging links with specific keyword-rich anchor text is a pattern Google is designed to detect. Paid links should be qualified with rel="sponsored" anyway, as explained in the guide to nofollow, sponsored, and ugc link attributes.
What you can influence
- Your page titles. People often use a page's title as anchor text, so a clear, descriptive title tends to produce clear, descriptive anchors.
- Outreach. When you reach out about a resource, describe it plainly. Don't dictate anchor text.
- Guest content. When you write for another site, link naturally with descriptive or branded anchors, the way an editor would expect.
The guide to building backlinks without paying covers tactics that earn natural, editorial links.
How to Audit Your Anchor Text
Internal links: on key pages, review each link and its anchor. Look for generic anchors on important links, the same anchor pointing to different pages, and anchors that don't describe the destination. The Page Content Analyzer reports internal and external links for any page, and the Broken Link Checker confirms they all resolve.
Backlinks: Google Search Console's Links report shows your top linking text. For a more detailed view, Serpstat's backlink analysis shows anchor text across your referring links, which helps spot an unnatural concentration of exact-match anchors, often a sign of past link building that may need attention. Disclosure: TopWebPositions may earn a commission if you sign up through this link, at no extra cost to you. If you find a pattern of manipulative links you didn't create and can't remove, the upcoming guide to toxic backlinks and the disavow tool covers when disavowing is warranted.
The Bottom Line
Write anchor text for the reader first. Describe where the link goes, concisely and accurately, and let the wording vary naturally. For internal links, that means descriptive anchors that include the target page's topic. For backlinks, it means earning links naturally and leaving the wording to the people linking. Good anchor text is simply honest anchor text, and that's what Google's guidelines are designed to reward.