What is Anchor Text?

A simple definition of anchor text: The label given to the link is called anchor text. Or to be more precise it is also known as the clickable text of the link in the content.

For example- Nebula Media

The anchor text written within the <a> tags in HTML.

<a href=”https://www.nebulamedia.com”>Nebula Media</a>

Here in this example, the link is www.nebulamedia.com and the anchor text is Nebula Media.

Importance of Anchor Text for search engine optimisation

When it comes to SEO, anchor text has huge importance. Let’s explain.

As you know link building is one of the essential tools in SEO. The links, as well as the text used i.e the anchor text, is something that Google’s algorithm pays close attention too.

These anchor texts give Google an idea regarding what the whole web page is all about.

Many marketers started making use of this as an advantage to increase their rankings by including a keyword-rich anchor text to their web pages even if it made no sense to the content of the site.

But this practice did not go for long. Google updated a new algorithm called Penguin that caused a steep drop in the rankings of all such websites with manipulative anchor texts. They also had to remove all those unrelated anchor texts right away.

So, make sure to diversify and randomize your anchor texts to avoid such penalisation.

Various types of Anchor Text

  • Exact match: The page to which you are linking and the anchor text use the exact keyword phrase.
  • Partial Match: Here, you are linking to anchor text that contains the keyword phrases along with generic or random words.
  • Generic: Anchor text such as click here, read more, etc are used.
  • Branded: Using brand name and public figures in your content and linking them.
  • Related: Using a variation of the target keyword to link a page.
  • Random: Here anchor text can be anything random and needn’t be related to the keyword.
  • Naked: There are no texts used here. The whole URL is used to link the website.
  • Brand + Anchor: Here the keyword along with the Brand name is used.
  • Image: Linking images to a site and adding alt text.
  • Long-tail: Similar to partial anchors except they are generic and descriptive.

Things you must do to optimize your anchor text for SEO

  • Randomise your anchor texts
  • Make sure not to link to or earn links from spammy websites
  • Test your current anchor texts either using backlink profile ahrefs.com or anchor text categorize tool in Linkio.
  • Pay attention to content nearby texts as well.
  • Use anchor text that makes sense

What is the perfect anchor text ratio?

There isn’t anything like a perfect anchor text ratio. It is always recommended to be diversified and use various types of anchor text in your content.

Never over-optimise and let your anchor text links be natural.