Anchor Text

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. Search engines read it as a short description of the page the link points to, written by whoever placed the link rather than by the page owner. In HTML it is the text between the opening and closing <a> tags.

<a href="https://linkutm.com/glossary/utm">UTM parameters</a>

“UTM parameters” is the anchor text.

Why Anchor Text Matters

Anchor text is one of the oldest ranking signals Google uses. Sergey Brin and Larry Page wrote in their 1998 paper on the Google prototype that anchors often provide more accurate descriptions of web pages than the pages themselves. Google’s current link best practices still tell publishers to write descriptive, concise link text and to avoid generic wording.

Three practical reasons it matters:

• Relevance. Anchor text travels with the link equity a link passes, telling search engines what the destination is about.
• Accessibility. Screen readers can list every link on a page out of context, so ten links reading “click here” give a user nothing to choose from. WCAG success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose) covers this.
• Control. You write every internal anchor on your own site. External anchors are written by other people, so internal linking is where anchor text is a lever rather than a hope.

Types of Anchor Text

Anchor text is classified by how closely it matches the target page’s keyword. The examples below all point to the same page about UTM parameters.

• Exact match: the target keyword and nothing else. “utm parameters”
• Partial match: the keyword inside a longer phrase. “this guide to utm parameters”
• Branded: a brand or product name. “linkutm”
• Branded plus keyword: brand and keyword together. “linkutm’s UTM builder”
• Naked URL: the raw URL used as the text. “https://linkutm.com/glossary/utm”
• Generic: no descriptive value. “click here”, “read more”, “this page”
• Long-tail: a full descriptive phrase longer than the keyword. “how UTM parameters track campaign traffic in GA4”
• Image: when a link wraps an image, Google treats the image’s alt text as the anchor text.

Branded, naked URL, and long-tail anchors dominate most natural link profiles. Exact match is the rarest on genuinely earned links.

Anchor Text Best Practices

1. Describe the destination in two to five words. The reader should know where the link goes without reading the surrounding sentence.
2. Keep exact match anchor text rare on backlinks, and vary the rest. Google’s Penguin update, launched on 24 April 2012, targeted link schemes built on over-optimized anchors, and Penguin 4.0 folded it into the core algorithm in September 2016. A profile where most anchors repeat the same commercial phrase is the pattern it looks for.
3. Do not point one anchor at different pages. Using “campaign tracking” for three different destinations sends conflicting signals about which page owns the topic.
4. Give every image link alt text. Without it, an image link passes no textual context at all.
5. Mark paid and user-submitted links. Use rel="sponsored on paid placements and rel="ugc on comment and forum links. Google reclassified nofollow and these two values as hints in September 2019.

The href itself does not change how anchor text is read. A branded short link on your own custom domain behaves like any other URL, provided it resolves in a single hop rather than through a chain.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is anchor text?

Anchor text is the clickable text of a hyperlink, the words a reader sees and clicks. Search engines use it as a description of the linked page, and it applies to internal links, external links, and backlinks alike.

What is exact match anchor text?

Exact match anchor text is identical to the keyword the destination page targets, such as linking the words “url shortener” to a page about URL shorteners. It is the strongest relevance signal and the riskiest type on external links, because a profile stuffed with commercial exact match anchors is the classic footprint of a paid link scheme.

Does anchor text still affect rankings?

Yes. Google’s link best practices documentation instructs publishers to write descriptive anchor text, and John Mueller has confirmed that internal anchor text helps Google understand what a page is about. It is one signal among many, so a page with strong anchors but weak content will not rank on anchors alone.

Is “click here” bad anchor text?

It is weak, not penalized. “Click here” gives search engines no information about the destination and gives screen reader users nothing to distinguish one link from another. Replace it with the name of what the reader will get, such as “the UTM naming checklist”. The link works either way, it just carries no context.

Audit the anchor text on your highest-traffic pages first, since those internal links carry the most weight to the pages you want ranking.