Introduction: The anchor text is the clickable link text. The anchor or A element is the element that makes a hyperlink.
Updated on: 2021-11-07
Name: Anchor Text
Referred to as Anchor, Link Text, Anchor Text
Category: On-Page SEO / Off-Page SEO
Correct Use:
<a href=“domain.com”>anchor text to click</a>
Our take:
Anchor text is one of the most important aspects of a link. It is literally the description of the link, and links are important, so relevance is key.
Be aware of the Penguin algorithm – Google introduced this specifically to deal with anchor text spam and misuse.
Extra reading:
- Google Bombing
- Penguin Algorithm
- https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a
Do:
- Use descriptive and relevant text.
- Vary the text and keep it diverse but relevant
Don’t:
Use the same exact anchor text in multiple links! Beware of the Penguin Algorithm
Tip: Be like Wikipedia! People usually significantly overlook the potential of internal linking – this is something you have full control over.
Use the following domain in Google – site:yourdomain.com “target keyword”
Replace yourdomain.com for, you know, your domain name and change target keyword – encapsulated between quote marks for your target keyword or phrase. This will give you a list of ranked pages that Google sees on your site related to your target keyword. Visit those pages on your site, find related keywords within the text, and add internal links to your target page.
Another tip – use Google Search Console to find your keyword or a closely related keyword by adding a filter in the queries section, then select the pages section.
Where you find more than one page (usually with a clearly obvious primary page that gets most of the traffic) you can use these pages to provide internal links to your target page with keyword-relevant internal links.
Introduced:
Originally with the web – this was the bedrock of the internet.
Yahoo jumped on it with their directory, before search engines figured out how to do it better!
First, there were web pages, then there were directories, and then search engines.
What Google Says:
What experts say: