Anchor Text

TL;DR — Anchor textAnchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers what they'll find on the other end and gives search engines context about the linked page. is the clickable words in a link. Search engines read it to understand what the linked page is about, so make it descriptive — “email marketing guide” beats “click here.” For links on your own site, just write clearly; you can’t hurt yourself by “over-optimizing” your own internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them.. The over-optimization worry you’ve heard about is really about links other sites point at you.

What anchor text is

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a link — the words you click to go somewhere. In HTML, it’s the text between the link tags:

<a href="/blog/email-marketing/">email marketing guide</a>

Here the anchor text is “email marketing guide.” That’s it — the words a reader sees and clicks.

For an image that’s a link, there are no clickable words. So Google uses the image’s alt text (the description you write for the image) as the anchor text instead. Evidence for this claim For an image used as a link, Google uses the image alt text as anchor text. Scope: Google image-link guidance. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google Search Central: Anchor text for images

Why it matters

Anchor text does two jobs at once:

1. It tells readers what they’ll get if they click. Clear link text is just good writing.
2. It tells search engines what the linked page is about. “Running shoes” as anchor text is a small hint to Google that the page on the other end is about running shoes.

The types you’ll hear about

People sort anchor text into a handful of buckets:

• Exact-match — the anchor is exactly a keyword: running shoes linking to a running-shoes page.
• Partial-match — a variation: best running shoes for beginners.
• Branded — a company or product name: Nike.
• Naked URL — the raw web address as the text: https://example.com/shoes.
• Generic — vague words like click here, read more, this page.
• Image (alt textAlt text is the value of the `alt` attribute on an HTML `<img>` element — a short text substitute chosen for the image's purpose and context, not a literal description of what it shows. It makes images accessible to screen-reader users and helps search engines understand images, mainly for image search.) — for image links, the alt text is the anchor text.

How to do it well

• Be descriptive. Google’s rule: good anchor text is “descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant.” Evidence for this claim Good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to both pages. Scope: Google anchor-text best practices. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google Search Central: Anchor text
• Skip “click here.” Google specifically calls out generic anchors as unhelpful — they tell nobody anything.
• Don’t stuff keywords. Write naturally. You don’t need to cram the exact keyword into every link.
• Don’t worry about “penalties” for your own links. The scary “anchor text over-optimization” stuff you’ve read is about links from other websites, not the links you write between your own pages.

The thing most people get wrong

There is a huge difference between the anchor text on links you write (on your own site) and the anchor text on links other sites point at you. For your own internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them., you literally cannot over-optimize your way into a penalty — Google has said keyword-optimizing internal anchors has “no visible effect in search.” The over-optimization risk only ever lived in your backlink profile. Most guides blur these together, and that’s the confusion this article exists to clear up.

Want the full version — every type, the internal-vs-external split in detail, the Bing angle, and why “safe anchor-text ratios” aren’t a real Google rule? Switch to the Advanced tab.

TL;DR — Anchor textAnchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers what they'll find on the other end and gives search engines context about the linked page. is the clickable text of a link (for image links, alt text plays the role). Types — exact-match, partial-match, branded, naked URL, generic, image/alt — all answer to the same bar: Google’s “descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant.” The centerpiece distinction: over-optimization risk is an external backlink-profile concern, historically tied to Penguin (2012) and now folded into Google’s broader spam systems and the “unnatural links” manual action. Internal anchor text is just a context signal — Mueller says keyword-optimizing it has “no visible effect in search,” so write for clarity, not density. There is no official “safe” exact-match ratio — those percentages are practitioner heuristics, not Google-published thresholds. Natural variety is itself what makes a backlink profile look organic.

What anchor text is (and what it isn’t)

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink — the words wrapped by the <a> element. It’s distinct from two things it often gets confused with: the URL in the href (which the reader doesn’t see) and the surrounding text near the link (which Google can also read for context, but which isn’t the anchor itself).

For image links, there’s no clickable text at all, so Google reads the image’s alt attribute as the anchor-text equivalent. Google’s own docs pair this directly with the same quality rule it applies to text anchors: use “descriptive alt text for anchor text” and “avoid generic text like ‘click here.’” The full treatment of writing alt textAlt text is the value of the `alt` attribute on an HTML `<img>` element — a short text substitute chosen for the image's purpose and context, not a literal description of what it shows. It makes images accessible to screen-reader users and helps search engines understand images, mainly for image search. lives in the image-SEO material in the on-page pillar — the point here is narrow: alt textAlt text is the value of the `alt` attribute on an HTML `<img>` element — a short text substitute chosen for the image's purpose and context, not a literal description of what it shows. It makes images accessible to screen-reader users and helps search engines understand images, mainly for image search. on an image link is held to the same descriptiveness bar as a text anchor, not a lower one. Evidence for this claim For an image used as a link, Google uses the image alt text as anchor text. Scope: Google image-link guidance. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google Search Central: Anchor text for images

The types of anchor text

The industry names six common types. Google’s “good anchor text” criteria are the quality bar for all of them, not just exact-match:

• Exact-match — the anchor is identical to a target keyword or phrase (running shoes → a running-shoes page).
• Partial-match / phrase-match — a variation or subset of the target phrase (best running shoes for flat feet).
• Branded — a company, brand, or product name (Ahrefs, Nike Pegasus).
• Naked URL — the raw URL itself as the visible text (https://example.com/shoes). Common and perfectly natural in citations and reference links.
• Generic — non-descriptive filler: click here, read more, learn more, this page. Google explicitly calls these out as too vague to be useful.
• Image (alt text) — for image links, the alt attribute is the anchor text, held to the same non-generic standard.

You’ll occasionally see “LSI” or “semantic” listed as a seventh type. It’s a soft, loosely defined category rather than a rigorous one — treat it with caution; it mostly just means “partial-match that uses related words.”

What makes good anchor text

Google’s guidance is short and worth quoting in full: “Good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to the page that it’s on and to the page it links to.” Evidence for this claim Good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to both pages. Scope: Google anchor-text best practices. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google Search Central: Anchor text Google even gives you a practical self-test: “Try reading only the anchor text (out of context) and check if it’s specific enough to make sense by itself.” If the anchor is “website” or “article” or “click here,” it fails that test.

The other half of the guidance is a warning against the opposite failure: “Write as naturally as possible, and resist the urge to cram every keyword that’s related to the page that you’re linking to.” So the target isn’t “keyword-dense” — it’s “descriptive and natural.” Those are different things, and the gap between them is where most anchor-text mistakes live.

The distinction that matters most: internal vs. external anchor text

This is the section this whole article exists for, because almost no generic “anchor text best practices” guide separates the two cleanly — and the confusion is real. Anchor text behaves differently depending on whose link it is.

Internal anchor text — a context signal you control. These are the links you write between your own pages. Here, anchor text is topical context, and there is no over-optimization penalty to worry about. John Mueller addressed the internal case directly. Asked whether a site should change the anchor text on two internal pages about cheese (a transactional page and a guide) that both used the anchor “cheese,” he said: “If you’re using a reasonable anchor text for cheese in this case, that sounds perfectly fine. I don’t think you need to kind of change the anchor text to be ‘buy your cheese online here’…” And on whether keyword-optimizing internal anchors moves rankings at all: “It’s something you could do if you wanted to… but it’s not something where you would see a visible effect in search.” Read that plainly: there is no internal-linking equivalent of a Penguin penalty, and no “internal anchor-text ratio” to manage. Write internal anchors that are descriptive and useful, and stop there. (The parent internal-links article covers how to structure internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them.; this is specifically about how to word them.)

External / backlink anchor text — the actual over-optimization surface. These are links from other sites pointing at you — including the anchors you choose in guest posts, digital PR, and outreach. This is the one place anchor-text over-optimization risk historically lived. Google’s 2012 Penguin update targeted manipulative link-building patterns algorithmically, and a disproportionately exact-match anchor profile was a classic tell. Penguin 4.0 (2016) shifted this from a “penalty” model to a devalue-and-ignore model, and today it’s folded into Google’s broader spam-detection systems (the SpamBrain umbrella). The key insight about why this is a backlink concern: you don’t control the anchor text other webmasters use when they link to you. So when hundreds of unrelated sites all link to you with the identical commercial exact-match phrase, that uniformity reads as coordination — i.e. manipulation — precisely because real, organic recommenders write anchors in varied, natural ways without coordinating.

The practical framing to hand a reader: if you’re writing the link yourself on your own site, optimize for clarity, not keyword density. If you’re worried about anchor text you don’t control — other sites’ backlinks to you — that’s a backlink-profile audit question, not a wording question.

TIP Find ambiguous internal anchors before rewriting them

Generic labels are not automatically harmful, but repeated labels pointing to different targets make navigation and context harder to interpret.

Audit a link sample with my free Link Analyzer Free

1. Analyze representative internal links and group generic or non-navigational labels.
2. Prioritize identical anchor labels that point to different destinations.
3. Rewrite anchors to describe the destination where that improves user understanding, then rerun the sample.

Tap to enlarge

The structural findings show one non-navigational link labeled Click here, three generic labels including Click here and Learn more, one Learn more label pointing to two different guide URLs, and one internal nofollow link to pricing.

Anchor text and Google’s spam policies

Everything Google says about “optimized anchor text” as a risk lives on the external side. In its spam policies, “optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts, or press releases distributed on other sites” is listed as a link scheme — and the illustrative bad example is a paid advertorial stuffing unrelated exact-match commercial anchors (“wedding rings,” “buy flowers”) into content. It also flags “forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature.” Every example is an acquired/paid link scenario, never a site’s own internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them..

Similarly, Google’s Manual actions report documents the “Unnatural links to your site” manual action — inbound, external links from other domains, the modern descendant of what Penguin originally targeted. There is no “unnatural internal links” manual action, because there’s no such thing.

One reassuring note from Google’s side: reps have repeatedly downplayed the need for most sites to actively manage their backlink anchor-text ratios or reach for the Disavow tool, on the logic that Google’s systems now devalue manipulative links algorithmically rather than requiring manual cleanup. Treat that as the general posture, not a licence to build spammy anchors.

Anchor text “ratios” and diversity — heuristic, not rule

You’ll see confident-sounding “safe distributions” published everywhere: branded 30–60%, partial-match 15–25%, generic 10–20%, naked URL 5–15%, exact-match kept under 5–10%. Here’s the honest version: neither Google nor Bing has ever published an anchor-text ratio. These numbers are practitioner heuristics from link-building practice — directional guardrails for outreach and digital-PR campaigns, useful as sanity checks, but not documented algorithmic thresholds. Anyone presenting a specific percentage as a Google rule is presenting a convention as a fact.

The underlying logic is more useful than the numbers: natural variety is itself the signal. A healthy backlink profile has branded anchors, naked URLs, generic anchors, and descriptive anchors mixed together — because that’s what real, uncoordinated human linking produces. A profile where every single link is a keyword-perfect exact-match anchor is anomalous precisely because organic linking is never that tidy. This is also why naked URLs and generic anchors aren’t “bad anchors to eliminate” — some of them are part of what makes a profile look real.

Ahrefs’ own data study (Anchor Text: A Data-Driven Guide, by Joshua Hardwick — an Ahrefs colleague of mine, not my own piece) studied 384,614 pages and foundA 302 (\"Found\") is a temporary redirect: it forwards users to a new URL while telling search engines the original URL should stay in the index. It's a weak canonicalization signal, not the zero-equity dead end of SEO folklore. weak correlation between exact-match anchor percentage and rankings; the median exact-match anchor share across ranking positions was effectively zero. That’s a strong, already-published reason not to over-indexStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed. on exact-match — no new research required.

A note on length

Anchor text length gets treated as a lever more than it deserves to be. Google doesn’t specially reward or penalize anchors by word count — longer anchors just convey more context, they aren’t inherently “better” or “worse.” Google uses the anchor text to add context for the linked page; a two-word anchor and an eight-word anchor are simply different amounts of context, not different tiers of quality.

Bing’s take

Bing’s public wording leans a touch more keyword-forward than Google’s. In its Making Links Work For You post, Bing says: “Think of the anchor text as your primary description of the linked page.” It also suggests using the title attribute to add keyword context where the natural flow of your prose constrains the visible anchor text — a tip Google doesn’t emphasize. But Bing has never published Penguin-equivalent guidance singling out anchor-text over-optimization as a demotion trigger, so the split holds across both engines: descriptive and contextually relevant for the anchors you write; profile variety for the links you don’t. The website-structure and site-architecture siblings in this cluster cover the broader internal-linking shape those anchors sit inside.

Where to go next

Anchor text is one facet of internal linkingLinks between pages on the same site. — the wording of the links whose structure the internal-links hub and the site-architecture and website-structure articles cover. For the full alt-text-writing treatment (anchor text’s image-link cousin), see the image-SEO material in the on-page pillar. And if your real question is about a backlink profile you inherited rather than links you write, that’s a link-audit and link-building topic, not an on-page wording one.

AI summary

A condensed take on the Advanced version:

• Anchor textAnchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers what they'll find on the other end and gives search engines context about the linked page. = the clickable text of a link. For image links, the alt attribute is the anchor-text equivalent, held to the same descriptiveness bar.
• Six types: exact-match, partial-match, branded, naked URL, generic (“click here”), and image/alt. Google’s “descriptive, reasonably concise, relevant” rule applies to all of them.
• Good anchor text = descriptive + natural, not keyword-dense. Google’s test: read the anchor out of context and see if it still makes sense. And “resist the urge to cram every keyword.”
• The core distinction: over-optimization risk is an external backlink concern (Penguin 2012, now Google’s broader spam systems + the “unnatural links to your site” manual action), because you don’t control the anchors other sites use.
• Internal anchor text has no penalty surface. Mueller: keyword-optimizing your own internal anchors has “no visible effect in search” — write for clarity, not a ratio.
• Google’s spam policy flags “optimized anchor text” only in acquired-link scenarios (advertorials, guest posts, forum signatures) — never internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them..
• No official “safe ratio.” The branded-X% / exact-match-under-Y% numbers are practitioner heuristics, not Google rules. Ahrefs’ 384,614-page study foundA 302 (\"Found\") is a temporary redirect: it forwards users to a new URL while telling search engines the original URL should stay in the index. It's a weak canonicalization signal, not the zero-equity dead end of SEO folklore. weak exact-match/ranking correlation (median exact-match share ~0).
• Natural variety is the signal. Naked URLs and generic anchors mixed in are part of what makes a backlink profile look organic.
• Length isn’t a quality tier — longer anchors just carry more context.
• Bing is slightly more keyword-forward (and suggests the title attribute) but has no Penguin-equivalent over-optimization guidance.

Official documentation

Primary-source documentation from the search engines.

Google

• SEO link best practices — the primary anchor-text reference: “descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant,” the read-it-out-of-context test, generic-anchor examples, alt text as anchor textAnchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers what they'll find on the other end and gives search engines context about the linked page. for image links, and “resist the urge to cram every keyword.” Start here.
• Spam policies for Google web search — where “optimized anchor text” appears as a link scheme, with every example on the acquired/paid-link side (advertorials, guest posts, forum comments).
• Manual actions report — the “Unnatural links to your site” manual action: an inbound/external backlink issue, the modern descendant of Penguin.

Bing / Microsoft

• Making Links Work For You (SEM 101) — Bing’s “anchor text as your primary description of the linked page” guidance, its more keyword-forward framing, and the title-attribute tip.
• Bing Webmaster Guidelines — Bing’s general guidance on descriptive, keyword-relevant anchor text (JS-rendered; confirm live).

Quotes from the source

On-the-record statements from Google and Bing. Each link is a deep link that jumps to the quoted passage on the source page.

Google — what makes good anchor textAnchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers what they'll find on the other end and gives search engines context about the linked page. (SEO link best practices)

• “Good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to the page that it’s on and to the page it links to.” Jump to quote
• “Try reading only the anchor text (out of context) and check if it’s specific enough to make sense by itself.” Jump to quote
• “Write as naturally as possible, and resist the urge to cram every keyword” related to the page you’re linking to. Jump to quote
• On image links, Google says to use descriptive alt text for anchor text and to avoid generic text like “click here.” Jump to quote

John Mueller, Google — internal anchor text has no visible ranking effect

• “If you’re using a reasonable anchor text for cheese in this case, that sounds perfectly fine. I don’t think you need to kind of change the anchor text to be ‘buy your cheese online here’…” Jump to quote
• “It’s not something where you would see a visible effect in search.” (on keyword-optimizing internal anchor text) Jump to quote

Bing — anchor text as the linked page’s description

• “Think of the anchor text as your primary description of the linked page.” Jump to quote

Anchor text — cheat sheet

The six types at a glance

Internal vs. external — the decision that actually matters

Quick rules

• Read your anchor out of context — if it doesn’t say what the page is, rewrite it.
• Descriptive ≠ keyword-crammed. “Resist the urge to cram every keyword.”
• No official safe exact-match %. The published numbers are heuristics, not rules.
• Image link = its alt text is the anchor text. Same descriptiveness bar.
• Length isn’t a quality tier — longer just means more context.

Anchor text anti-patterns

The recurring mistakes — most of them born from mixing up internal and external advice.

1. Treating internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them. like a backlink profile. Agonizing over “internal anchor-text ratios,” or refusing to use an accurate exact-match internal anchor because you’re afraid of “over-optimization.” Mueller settled this: keyword-optimizing internal anchors has “no visible effect in search.” There’s no internal Penguin. Write the clearest anchor and move on.

2. Keyword-stuffing every internal anchor. The opposite error: forcing the exact-match target keyword into every link to a page. It won’t help (see above) and it reads badly for users. Google’s own guidance is to “resist the urge to cram every keyword.” Descriptive variation is fine and natural.

3. Generic anchors as the default. “Click here,” “read more,” “learn more,” “this page.” They fail Google’s read-it-out-of-context test and waste the context signal. This one’s a UX/clarity problem, not a penalty — but it’s still a wasted opportunity on every link.

4. Chasing a “safe” exact-match percentage as if it’s official. There is no Google- or Bing-published anchor-text ratio. Building a campaign around “keep exact-match under 5%” as though it’s a documented threshold treats a practitioner rule of thumb as an algorithmic rule.

5. Scrubbing all naked-URL and generic anchors from a backlink profile. Over-correcting toward a profile where every single inbound anchor is a keyword-perfect exact-match. That uniformity is itself the manipulation signal — real, uncoordinated linking is messy and varied, and some naked URLs and branded mentions are what make it look organic.

6. Building uniform exact-match anchors in guest posts / PR. The genuine over-optimization pattern: coordinating the same commercial exact-match anchor across many acquired links. This is exactly what Google’s spam policy on “optimized anchor textAnchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers what they'll find on the other end and gives search engines context about the linked page. in articles, guest posts, or press releases” describes.

7. Treating image-link alt textAlt text is the value of the `alt` attribute on an HTML `<img>` element — a short text substitute chosen for the image's purpose and context, not a literal description of what it shows. It makes images accessible to screen-reader users and helps search engines understand images, mainly for image search. as a lower-stakes afterthought. For an image link, the alt text is the anchor text. “click here” alt on a linked image is the same mistake as “click here” link text — Google applies the same descriptive/non-generic standard.

Anchor text checklist

For internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them. (links you write on your own site)

• Anchor textAnchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers what they'll find on the other end and gives search engines context about the linked page. is descriptive — it describes the destination page.
• It passes the read-it-out-of-context test — no “click here,” “read more,” “this page.”
• It’s natural, not crammed — you’re not forcing the exact-match keyword into every link to the page.
• You’re not managing an internal “anchor-text ratio” — there’s no penalty surface to manage internally.
• Image links have descriptive alt text — that alt textAlt text is the value of the `alt` attribute on an HTML `<img>` element — a short text substitute chosen for the image's purpose and context, not a literal description of what it shows. It makes images accessible to screen-reader users and helps search engines understand images, mainly for image search. is the anchor text.

For external links (backlinks / outreach anchors you choose)

• The overall backlink anchor profile shows natural variety — branded, naked URL, partial-match, and generic anchors mixed in, not all exact-match.
• You’re not coordinating identical exact-match commercial anchors across guest posts, advertorials, or PR (a link-scheme signal).
• Any “safe ratio” numbers you’re using are understood as unofficial heuristics, not Google rules.
• If auditing an inherited profile, you’re evaluating whether the pattern looks organic, not chasing a specific percentage.

Prompt: rewrite vague internal anchors

Paste a list of source sentences and each destination page’s title. The prompt asks for useful link text without forcing the same exact phrase everywhere.

You are editing internal-link anchor text for clarity. For each row below, return:
1. a concise anchor that describes the destination when read out of context,
2. the revised source sentence with that anchor placed naturally, and
3. a warning if the destination does not genuinely support the surrounding claim.

Do not use "click here," "read more," or naked URLs. Do not force exact-match wording.
Preserve the sentence's meaning and do not invent claims about the destination.

Rows:
[PASTE SOURCE SENTENCE | DESTINATION TITLE | DESTINATION SUMMARY]

Prompt: review an external-anchor profile without fake thresholds

Paste an export grouped by anchor textAnchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers what they'll find on the other end and gives search engines context about the linked page. and referring domains. The output should find patterns for review, not manufacture a supposedly safe percentage.

Review this backlink anchor-text export for potentially manipulated patterns.
Separate branded, naked-URL, generic, partial-match, exact-match, image/alt, and other
anchors. Highlight repeated commercial exact-match anchors that come from coordinated
or low-quality placements. Do not call any percentage "safe" or claim that a ratio is
a Google rule. For every concern, cite the rows that support it and suggest the next
manual check rather than recommending automatic disavowal.

Export:
[PASTE ANCHOR | REFERRING DOMAIN | TARGET URL | LINK CONTEXT]

Test yourself: Anchor Text

Five quick questions on anchor textAnchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers what they'll find on the other end and gives search engines context about the linked page.. Pick an answer for each, then check.

Resources worth your time

My related writing

• Internal Links for SEO: An Actionable Guide — my full Ahrefs guide to internal linkingAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them., including how to word and place internal anchors within a broader link-architecture strategy. The natural companion when you want the structure around the anchors.
• The State of Nofollow, UGC, & Sponsored Link Attributes — my study on link attributes, relevant when you’re thinking about how the links carrying your anchors are qualified.

My speaking

• Local Link Building (Pubcon Local 2021) — my talk on building links (and choosing anchors) in a local-SEO context, where the external backlink-anchor side of this article is most in play.

Official

• Google’s SEO link best practices — the canonical reference for descriptive anchor textAnchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers what they'll find on the other end and gives search engines context about the linked page., the out-of-context test, and alt textAlt text is the value of the `alt` attribute on an HTML `<img>` element — a short text substitute chosen for the image's purpose and context, not a literal description of what it shows. It makes images accessible to screen-reader users and helps search engines understand images, mainly for image search. on image links.

From around the industry

• Anchor Text: A Data-Driven Guide (384,614 Web Pages Studied) (Joshua Hardwick, Ahrefs) — the data study on weak exact-match/ranking correlation; a colleague’s piece, not mine, but the most useful anchor-text data set I know of.
• Google’s John Mueller on Internal Anchor Text and “Visible Effect in Search” (Search Engine Journal) — the source for the “buy your cheese online here” / “no visible effect” quotes at the heart of this article.
• Google’s John Mueller: Long Anchor Text Gives Us More Context (Search Engine Journal) — Mueller on why anchor-text length adds context rather than being better or worse.
• Spam policies for Google web search (Google) — the “optimized anchor text” link-scheme definition, with its acquired-link examples.
• Making Links Work For You (SEM 101) (Bing WebmasterMicrosoft's free portal for monitoring and improving how a site appears in Bing search — the peer to Google Search Console, plus IndexNow instant indexing, richer backlink data, and keyword volumes. Because Bing's index also feeds Microsoft Copilot, it doubles as a window into AI-search visibility. Blog) — Bing’s more keyword-forward “primary description of the linked page” framing.
• r/TechSEO — the community where anchor-profile and over-optimization questions get debated in practice.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers what they'll find on the other end and gives search engines context about the linked page.

Related: Internal Link, PageRank

Anchor Text

Anchor text (also called link text) is the visible, clickable words of a hyperlink — the part a reader clicks to follow the link. In HTML it’s the text between the opening and closing <a> tags: in <a href="/guide/">email marketing guide</a>, the anchor text is “email marketing guide.” For an image link, there’s no clickable text, so Google uses the image’s alt attribute as the functional equivalent of anchor text.

Search engines read anchor text as a relevance signal — it’s one of the ways they figure out what the linked page is about. Google’s link guidance recommends descriptive, reasonably concise anchor text that is relevant to both the source and destination pages. Generic anchors like “click here” or “read more” give both readers and search engines almost nothing to work with.

The most important thing to understand about anchor text is that it behaves very differently depending on whose link it is. For internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them. — links you write between your own pages — anchor text is a context signal you control, so write it for clarity rather than forcing keyword variants. For external backlinks — links other sites point at you — an unnaturally uniform, keyword-stuffed anchor pattern is where over-optimization risk historically lived, tied to Google’s 2012 Penguin update and now handled by its broader spam systems. Same words, very different risk profiles.

Related: Internal Link, PageRank