Anchor Text
The visible, clickable text of a hyperlink that signals to search engines what the linked page is about.
Definition
Anchor text is the human-readable text that is clickable within a hyperlink, typically styled in blue and underlined by default. When Google crawls a link, it reads the anchor text as a strong contextual signal about the topic and relevance of the destination page. Historically, exact-match anchor text (where the anchor is identical to the target keyword) was a dominant ranking signal; today it is one of many factors and must be used naturally to avoid over-optimization penalties.
There are several types of anchor text: exact match (the precise keyword), partial match (keyword plus extra words), branded (company name), naked URL (the raw URL as text), generic (e.g., "click here," "read more"), and image anchors (where the alt text serves as anchor text). A healthy backlink profile and internal link structure contains a natural mix of all these types.
For internal links, descriptive partial-match and exact-match anchors work well and help search engines map your site's topical structure. For external backlinks, diversity is key — an unnaturally high proportion of exact-match anchors from external sites is a Penguin-era red flag. Audit your anchor text distribution regularly using a link analysis tool.