Anchor text is one of those seemingly easy SEO aspects that may really affect how your website ranks. Use it well, and it will enhance your link profile. Use it wrongly, and you can trigger a Google penalty.
In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about anchor text, including the different types, how Google uses anchor text, and the best practices to follow in 2026.
Anchor text is the visible and clickable text within a hyperlink. You read an article. You click on it. That sentence takes you to another page. In HTML, it would look like:
<a href=”https://example.com”>this is the anchor text</a>
Ahrefs’ research on anchor text says that Google looks at anchor text as a relevancy indicator to know what the linked page is about. When hundreds of websites are linking to your page with the phrase “best link building service,” Google gets a strong signal that your page is relevant for that phrase.
This is where the exact keyword you are aiming to rank for matches the anchor text. For example, linking to a page about white hat link building with the keyword “white hat link building”. Exact match anchors are powerful, but should be used rarely to avoid the appearance of manipulation.
Your target keyword plus other words are partial match anchors. For example, “understand white hat link building strategies”. It feels more natural and still signals relevance.
Branded anchors employ your company or website name as the link text, such as “Backlinkier” or “visit Backlinkier”. These seem quite natural and should make up a big part of your anchor text profile.
A naked URL is an anchor that uses the raw web address, such as https://backlinkier.com. These are common in citations and references, and they offer natural diversity to your link profile.
Generic anchors use generic anchor text such as “click here”, “read more”, or “visit this page”. They add to a natural appearing profile but provide minimal relevant signal.
LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) anchors use synonyms or similar keywords of your target keyword. For example, “link building tips” or “earn backlinks organically” when connecting to a page regarding white hat link building.
Google looks at your complete anchor text profile, not just one link. Red flags if the distribution is unnatural. For instance, if 90 percent of your backlinks have the same keyword as anchor text, it seems like manipulation even if each connection comes from a respectable source.
This is an example of a healthy anchor text distribution:
One of the key goals of Google’s Penguin algorithm upgrade was to address over-optimized anchor text profiles. Sites with an unnatural percentage of exact match keyword anchors in their backlink profiles got hit hard.
Learn how to clean up your profile if your site has been issued a manual action or a ranking decline because of unnatural links with our guide to poisonous backlinks and how to cure them.
Backlinkier’s link-building team generates backlinks with organically diversified anchor text that looks organic, protects your site from penalties, and drives steady ranking improvements. If you would rather not do the hard work yourself and would rather have high-quality backlinks produced for you, Backlinkier’s link-building team is the right choice.
Check out more SEO recommendations on the Backlinkier insights blog.
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