Anchor text: what it is and how to use it for SEO

Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink: the words you click to go to another page. It affects whether someone clicks, and also how Google judges the target page’s relevance for a keyword. There are six types of anchor text, and the right mix depends on where the link sits and how strong the source is.

In this post we answer:

• What anchor text is and why it matters for SEO
• The six types and when to use each one
• How to set anchor text for internal and external links
• Tips for analysing and cleaning up your anchor text profile

Sunbird is a search agency based in Malmö, Sweden, with 14 years in search. As always, we keep it practical.

Anchor text is the clickable text in a link. Both visitors and Google use it to understand the page it links to.

In HTML, for example, an anchor text can look like this, where “Sunbird” is the anchor text.

<a href="https://sunbirdsearch.com/">Sunbird</a>

Anchor text does two jobs: it helps visitors understand what to expect if they click the link, and it helps search engines understand what is on the linked page.

Google crawls the web link by link, and anchor text is a clear ranking factor for SEO because it:

• Strengthens the page’s relevance: Anchor text gives search engines an indication of what the page is about.
• Improves the user experience: Links can be a quick way for visitors to read on and find the right page. That in turn strengthens your SEO further.

Good anchor text makes your page easier for visitors to reach, and it also improves the page’s SEO by giving search engines clear information about its relevance for specific keywords.

Anchor text falls into six types depending on what the clickable text contains, from a plain brand name to an exact keyword.

• Branded anchor text: Your company name as the anchor text.
• Exact match: The exact keyword you want to rank for.
• Partial match: The keyword combined with other text (at least two other words).
• Generic anchor text (call to action): Words such as “click here” or “read more”.
• Naked URL: The URL itself becomes the anchor text.
• Image anchor text and alt text: Links where an image is used as the anchor. Your alt text becomes the anchor text.

How much of each you should have depends on whether the link is internal or external. For external links, the rule of thumb is that the great majority should be brand names, naked URLs, generic phrases and broad partial matches, with only a small share of keyword-focused anchors (exact or partial match). A good way to calibrate is to look at what the competitors ranking above you are doing.

The order in which your anchor texts arrive matters.

1. Start with an exact-match anchor: Begin by linking to the page with anchor text that exactly matches the keyword you want to rank for. This helps search engines understand straight away what your page is about.
2. Vary the anchor text: After that first exact match, carry on with links that use varied anchor text such as your brand, generic phrases and naked URLs. This diversifies your anchor text profile and makes it more natural.

Add more exact matches when needed. If your page is not ranking as you want, you can try adding more exact-match anchors from high-quality, relevant sources.

Be careful with external links here. An external link profile dominated by exact-match anchors is associated with Google’s spam filters stepping in, so keep the share low. Brand names and naked URLs should always make up most of the profile.

The type you choose depends on the purpose of the link and how strong the source is.

• Brand: Ideal for building brand authority and recognition. Used mainly when you want to tie an external link to your brand.
• Exact match: Effective for ranking for specific keywords, but should be used with care to avoid over-optimisation.
• Partial match: Good for keeping variety in your anchor text while still including relevant keywords.
• Generic anchor text: Useful for calls to action, but of little SEO value. Use sparingly.
• Naked URLs: Used when you want the visitor to see and recognise the actual URL.
• Image anchor text and alt text: Important for image links and for SEO on visual content.

If you are going to get a relevant, strong link in a natural way, you can be more ambitious with your choice of anchor text.

Where links come from less trustworthy sources such as directories and forums, use your brand, a call to action or a naked URL.

When you work on off-page SEO and build external links, this is where the expensive mistakes are made. A common scenario is a company that over the years has collected too many exact-match anchors through old campaigns and guest posts, and then sees traffic stall despite publishing good content. Cleaning up an over-optimised profile, removing and varying the anchor text, often achieves more than chasing new links.

Anchor text for internal links follows the opposite logic to external links: here you should be clear, descriptive and keyword-relevant, without worrying about penalties. It is your own website, and Google expects internal links to describe where they lead. It is extremely hard to be penalised for descriptive internal anchor text, which means you can be far more deliberate internally than externally.

This is also where you can act straight away. You do not need to wait for anyone else to link to you: every time you write a new article, you choose the anchor text yourself.

A few simple rules for internal anchor text:

• Use a descriptive phrase of 2–8 words that reflects the target page’s topic or H1.
• Drop “read more”, “click here” and naked URLs altogether. They waste the link’s relevance signal and tell neither Google nor the visitor anything.
• Vary the wording so that exactly the same anchor text never points to two different pages.

This is how the logic differs between internal and external links:

Why does it matter? Descriptive anchor text tells people what is waiting behind the link. Visitors find the right page faster, and Google gets a clearer signal about what the target page is about. If you want to go further into building a well-planned internal link structure, read our post on internal links.

Anchor text also matters for accessibility. People who use screen readers often navigate by jumping from link to link on a page. If the screen reader only reads out “read more, read more, click here”, the page is in practice unusable for them.

WCAG 2.1, which the EU’s European Accessibility Act builds on, requires that the purpose of a link can be understood from the link text and its context. Descriptive anchor text solves both problems: it meets the accessibility requirement and gives Google a clear signal about the target page. The same applies to image links, where the image’s alt text works as the anchor text. Leave the alt text empty and the link is useless to screen readers and search engines alike.

In short, if you write descriptive anchor text you get two things at once: better SEO and a website more people can use.

To improve your own anchor text strategy, it helps to understand how your competitors use theirs. Tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush can help you analyse their anchor text profiles, spot common patterns and adjust your own strategy accordingly.

• What to look for: Exact matches, keyword variations and where on the page they place their links.
• How to adapt your strategy: Use what you learn to find gaps and opportunities, differentiate your anchor text and build a competitive advantage.

Screaming Frog is a tool for analysing the anchor text used across a website. It helps you find and remove irrelevant anchor text that can harm your semantic SEO. It is particularly useful for spotting over-optimisation and creating a more natural spread of anchor text types.

How to use Screaming Frog:

1. Open Screaming Frog and enter the website you want to examine.
2. Choose “Bulk Export” → “Links” → “All Anchor Text”.
3. Go through the results to find over-optimised or irrelevant anchor text.
4. Filter out every internal row containing “read more”, “click here” or raw URLs. These links pass no relevance signal at all. Rewrite them as unique, descriptive phrases that reflect the topic of each target page.

The point is simple: every generic internal link you replace with a descriptive phrase is a free relevance signal you already own. You just need to start using it.

• Keyword stuffing: Using too many exact keywords on a page. Google often treats this as spam, and it can harm your rankings.
• Too many internal links: Including more internal links than is relevant can harm your rankings. Only add a link where the reader benefits from going further. Link equity is shared between every link on the page, so more links means less for each one. Use only relevant links, and feel free to mix in external links.
• Balance relevance and variation: Avoid using the same anchor text for different pages. Always aim for variation that is natural and logical.

None. Anchor text and link text are two names for the same thing: the clickable text in a hyperlink. “Anchor text” is the more common term in SEO.

Internally, you can use exact and descriptive keywords freely. Externally, exact match should be a small part of your link profile and saved for strong editorial sources.

Anchor text tells Google what the target page is about and strengthens the page’s relevance for a keyword. Descriptive anchor text also makes it easier for visitors to choose the right link.

Keep it short and descriptive, 2–8 words, so that both visitors and Google understand where the link leads. Avoid generic phrases such as “click here”.

If you would like help with your SEO or Google Ads, Nils and the team at Sunbird are happy to help. We are an SEO agency based in Malmö, Sweden, and the first step is a free search audit.