Anchor Text in SEO: What It Is and Why It Still Matters

Anchor text is the clickable, visible text in a hyperlink. In SEO, it matters because search engines use it as a signal to understand what the linked page is about, which influences how that page ranks for relevant queries. Get it right and it reinforces topical relevance. Get it wrong, and it can trigger a manual penalty or dilute the signals you are trying to build.

It sounds simple. In practice, it is one of the more nuanced parts of link building, and one of the easiest areas to get subtly wrong without realising it for months.

Why Anchor Text Deserves More Attention Than It Gets

When I was running iProspect, we grew the team from around 20 people to close to 100. As the team scaled, link building became more systematised, which was mostly a good thing. But I noticed something: the more process-driven the outreach became, the more the anchor text decisions got handed off to whoever was doing the outreach that week. The strategy was sound. The execution was inconsistent. And inconsistent anchor text, at scale, creates a profile that looks exactly like what it is: templated, not earned.

Anchor text is not just a technical detail. It is a signal that accumulates over time. Each link adds a data point to how Google understands your pages. A well-managed anchor text profile is evidence of a site that earns links naturally. A poorly managed one, even if the links themselves are legitimate, can undermine the rankings you are trying to build.

If you are working through a broader SEO strategy, anchor text sits within the link building and on-page relevance layers. The Complete SEO Strategy hub covers the full picture, including how anchor text connects to topical authority, technical signals, and content structure.

What Are the Different Types of Anchor Text?

Not all anchor text is the same, and the distinctions matter when you are auditing a link profile or planning a content strategy.

Exact match uses the precise keyword you want the page to rank for. If you are targeting “content marketing strategy” and the anchor text reads “content marketing strategy,” that is exact match. It sends a strong relevance signal, but a high proportion of exact-match anchors from external sites is a red flag. It looks unnatural because it is. Real editorial links rarely use the exact keyword phrase you are optimising for.

Partial match includes the target keyword alongside other words. “A solid content marketing strategy for B2B brands” contains the keyword but does not lead with it. This is closer to how genuine editorial links tend to read, and it is generally safer to build at scale.

Branded anchors use your company or product name. “According to The Marketing Juice” or “via Semrush” are branded anchors. A healthy proportion of branded anchors is a sign of a natural link profile, and they carry authority without the over-optimisation risk.

Generic anchors are phrases like “click here,” “read more,” or “this article.” They carry almost no topical signal, but they exist in natural link profiles because not every link is placed strategically. A profile with zero generic anchors can look as suspicious as one with too many exact-match anchors.

Naked URLs use the URL itself as the anchor, such as “https://themarketingjuice.com/seo-strategy/.” Common in citations and press mentions. They contribute to a natural-looking profile without adding keyword signal.

Image anchors occur when a linked image has alt text. The alt text functions as the anchor text for that link. Often overlooked, but worth auditing.

For a thorough breakdown of anchor text types and how they interact with link building, Semrush’s anchor text guide covers the taxonomy in useful detail.

How Does Google Use Anchor Text as a Ranking Signal?

Google has been using anchor text as a relevance signal since the earliest versions of PageRank. The logic is straightforward: if many pages link to a URL using the phrase “project management software,” that is a strong indication the linked page is about project management software. The anchor text aggregates across all inbound links to build a picture of what a page covers.

What has changed over time is how Google weights and contextualises those signals. Early SEO exploited exact-match anchors aggressively, and it worked until the Penguin algorithm update in 2012 started penalising manipulative link profiles. Since then, Google has become considerably better at distinguishing earned links from manufactured ones, and anchor text distribution is one of the clearest signals it uses to make that distinction.

The surrounding text matters too. Google does not read the anchor in isolation. It reads the paragraph, the heading above it, the topic of the linking page. A link using the anchor “SEO tools” from a page about digital marketing carries a different signal than the same anchor from a page about gardening. Context amplifies or dilutes the anchor text signal.

I have seen this play out in audits. One client had a solid backlink count and reasonable domain authority, but their rankings were stuck. When we pulled the anchor text distribution, a significant proportion of their external links were exact-match, concentrated across a small number of referring domains. It looked like a link scheme even though the links themselves were legitimate. Diversifying the anchor profile over the following six months contributed to a meaningful improvement in rankings. The links did not change. The signal they sent did.

What Does a Healthy Anchor Text Profile Look Like?

There is no universal formula, and anyone offering precise percentages for each anchor type is giving you false precision. What constitutes a healthy profile depends on your industry, your competitors, and how your links have been acquired.

That said, some general principles hold up across most situations.

Branded anchors should make up a meaningful share of your profile. If your brand is known and people genuinely reference it, branded links accumulate naturally. A profile with almost no branded anchors suggests links are being built artificially.

Exact-match anchors should be present but not dominant. A handful of exact-match anchors from authoritative, relevant sites sends a clear signal without triggering suspicion. A profile where 40% of anchors are exact-match keyword phrases is a different story.

Partial-match and topically related anchors should form a substantial portion of the profile. These are the anchors that tend to appear in genuine editorial links, where the writer is describing what they are linking to in natural language rather than optimising for a keyword.

Generic anchors and naked URLs should exist. Their presence is a sign that not every link was placed with SEO in mind, which is exactly what an organic link profile looks like.

The best way to calibrate your profile is to look at the top-ranking competitors in your space and compare distributions. If your exact-match ratio is twice theirs, you have a risk worth addressing. If your branded anchor share is far lower, you may have an opportunity to earn more brand mentions.

Why Internal Anchor Text Is Underused

Most of the conversation around anchor text focuses on external links. Internal anchor text gets far less attention, which is a missed opportunity because you have complete control over it and the risk of over-optimisation is considerably lower.

When you link internally between your own pages, the anchor text you use tells Google how those pages relate to each other. It reinforces topical clusters and helps search engines understand the hierarchy and focus of your content. If you are building a hub-and-spoke content structure, the anchor text on those internal links is part of what makes the structure work from an SEO perspective.

I have reviewed content audits for companies with hundreds of published articles and almost no strategic internal linking. The pages existed. The content was solid. But the internal anchor text was either generic (“read more here”) or absent entirely. The site was not communicating its topical depth to Google. Fixing the internal link structure, with descriptive, keyword-informed anchors, was one of the highest-return changes those sites could make, and it required no outreach, no budget, and no negotiation.

The principle is simple: when you link to a page about email marketing automation, the anchor text should reflect what that page covers. “Email marketing automation” or “automating your email sequences” is more useful than “this post” or “our guide.” It takes slightly longer to write. It compounds over hundreds of internal links into a meaningfully stronger topical signal.

The Over-Optimisation Risk: What It Looks Like and How to Avoid It

Over-optimised anchor text is one of the cleaner examples of a tactic that worked, got abused, and then became a liability. The logic behind exact-match anchor building was sound: if you want to rank for a phrase, get links using that phrase. The problem was that it worked too well for too long, which meant everyone did it, which meant Google had to respond.

The signal that triggers concern is not one exact-match link. It is a pattern. A large proportion of links using the same keyword phrase, often from sites with thin content or low topical relevance, looks like a deliberate attempt to manipulate rankings. Google has been explicit about this in its guidelines, and the Penguin algorithm made it a ranking factor rather than just a theoretical risk.

Avoiding over-optimisation is partly about restraint in active link building and partly about auditing what already exists. If you have inherited a site with a legacy link profile from aggressive SEO work, the anchor text distribution is one of the first things worth examining. Search Engine Land’s early coverage of anchor text signals gives useful historical context on how these signals have been interpreted by search engines over time.

When building links actively, vary the anchor text deliberately. Use the target keyword sometimes. Use partial match phrases. Use your brand name. Use the title of the article being linked to. Let the anchor reflect what a genuine editorial link would look like, because that is what you are trying to earn.

How to Audit Your Anchor Text Profile

An anchor text audit does not need to be complicated, but it does need to be honest. The goal is to understand what signal your current link profile is sending and whether that signal is helping or creating risk.

Start with a backlink tool, whether that is Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, or Google Search Console. Pull all inbound links to your site and export the anchor text data. Group the anchors into categories: exact match, partial match, branded, generic, naked URL, and other. Calculate the rough distribution across each category.

Then compare that distribution to your top competitors for the keywords you care about. You are looking for meaningful differences, not minor variations. If your exact-match ratio is significantly higher than theirs, that is a flag. If your branded anchor share is significantly lower, that might indicate a brand awareness gap as much as an SEO issue.

Look at the pages receiving the most exact-match anchors. Are those anchors coming from a diverse range of referring domains, or are they concentrated in a small number of sites? Concentration increases risk. Diversity reduces it.

For internal links, run a site crawl and review the anchor text used on your most important internal linking paths. Are you using descriptive, keyword-informed anchors or generic phrases? The fix here is usually straightforward: update the anchor text on existing internal links to be more descriptive. It is a low-effort, high-signal change.

Make this a regular exercise, not a one-off. Anchor text profiles shift as new links are built and old ones are lost. A profile that looked healthy twelve months ago may look different today if your link building programme has been running at pace.

Anchor Text in the Context of a Broader SEO Strategy

One thing I have noticed across years of client work and Effie judging is that marketers tend to treat SEO tactics as independent levers. Fix the anchor text. Build more links. Improve page speed. Each initiative gets resourced and evaluated in isolation. The problem is that SEO does not work in isolation. The value of a well-managed anchor text profile depends on the quality of the pages being linked to, the topical authority of the site, the technical health of the crawl, and a dozen other factors.

Anchor text is one signal in a system. A strong anchor text profile pointing to a thin, poorly structured page will not produce the rankings you expect. A great page with a weak or over-optimised anchor text profile will underperform its potential. The signals need to work together.

This is why I am cautious about agencies or consultants who lead with anchor text as the primary explanation for a ranking problem. It might be a contributing factor. It is rarely the only one. The honest diagnostic process looks at the full picture before drawing conclusions.

If you want to understand how anchor text fits into the wider framework of SEO decisions, the Complete SEO Strategy hub covers the interconnections between on-page signals, link authority, technical factors, and content structure in a way that treats the discipline as a system rather than a checklist.

Practical Anchor Text Decisions for Day-to-Day SEO Work

Most of the anchor text decisions you make are not grand strategic choices. They are small, recurring decisions made during content production, link building outreach, and site maintenance. Getting those small decisions right consistently is what produces a healthy profile over time.

When writing internal links, use descriptive anchor text that reflects the content of the destination page. Avoid “click here,” “read more,” and “this article.” Write the anchor as if you were describing the page to someone who could not see the URL.

When doing outreach for external links, do not specify exact anchor text in your pitch. It looks manipulative to the recipient and it concentrates your anchor profile in ways that create risk. Let the linking site choose natural language. If you are contributing a guest post, write the anchor text as a genuine editorial reference rather than a keyword placement.

When reviewing content before publication, check that every internal link has an anchor that would make sense to a reader who could not see the destination URL. If the anchor is doing its job editorially, it is probably doing its job for SEO too.

When auditing existing content, prioritise the pages that matter most for your commercial objectives. Update the internal anchor text on those pages first. The return on that effort is disproportionate to the time it takes.

One thing worth noting: the relationship between anchor text and on-page formatting is sometimes conflated. Bolded text and anchor text are different signals. Semrush’s split test on bolded text and SEO is a useful read if you are trying to separate those two levers.

About the Author

Keith Lacy is a marketing strategist and former agency CEO with 20+ years of experience across agency leadership, performance marketing, and commercial strategy. He writes The Marketing Juice to cut through the noise and share what works.

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