Anchor text

Long definition

Anchor text is how Google decides what the target page is about, independent of what the target page says about itself. If 500 sites link to a URL with the anchor "cheapest flights to Lisbon", Google concludes the URL is about cheapest flights to Lisbon — even if the target page never uses those exact words. This is also why Googlebombs worked (the "miserable failure" → George W. Bush prank, 2003-2007) before Google patched the specific heuristic.

The anchor text types, in order of strength-plus-risk:

1. Exact match — anchor is exactly the target keyword. Strongest signal, highest spam-filter risk. Natural links rarely use exact match.
2. Partial match — anchor contains the keyword plus other words ("guide to cheapest flights to Lisbon"). Strong and natural.
3. Branded — anchor is the brand or site name ("Kayak"). Safe, natural, common.
4. Naked URL — the URL itself is the anchor ("https://example.com/flights"). Common in footers, forum posts.
5. Generic — "click here", "read more", "this article". Weak signal, natural-looking.
6. Image with alt — the alt attribute acts as the anchor text for image links.

A healthy external anchor profile is dominated by branded + naked + generic (50-70%), partial match (20-40%), and exact match (<10%). Sites whose backlink profile tips heavily exact-match are patterns Google has been filtering for a decade.

Internal anchor text plays by different rules — exact-match is fine and common, since you control it and it signals your own intent. But still varied: Google's own internal linking guidance prefers descriptive over keyword-stuffed.

Common misconceptions

• "Generic anchors pass no ranking credit." They pass credit, just less targeted credit. "Click here" links do help rankings — they're just invisible to anchor-text-based relevance signals for specific queries.
• "Nofollow anchors don't count for anything." Google treats nofollow as a hint since 2019 and explicitly says they may use the anchor text for context even when not passing PageRank.
• "Keyword-rich internal anchors will trigger a penalty." Penalties target manipulative external link patterns. Internal anchors are your editorial decision — you're expected to describe links accurately. Over-stuffing hurts UX, not rankings.
• "Anchor text only matters for backlinks." Internal anchors matter too. The same rules of descriptive, varied, context-appropriate apply. Your internal link graph is how you tell Google which internal pages are the authorities for which subjects.