What Is Anchor Text? How to Write It to Boost SEO, and Points to Note
The "anchor text" you set on links in a web page is easy to assign without much thought, but it actually plays an important role for both SEO and usability. Because getting it wrong can even lower your evaluation, it is important to understand the right approach. This article clearly explains the basics of anchor text, its types, effective writing, pitfalls to avoid, and how to measure effectiveness.
Anchor text is the display text (the clickable string) set on a link. In most browsers it appears as blue, underlined text, and clicking it takes you to the linked page. In HTML, the text enclosed by the a tag is the anchor text.
The main role of anchor text is to convey to both users and search engines (crawlers) what is written on the linked page. Appropriate anchor text serves as a cue that lets users click with confidence, while also providing material for search engines to understand the theme of the linked page.
Google uses link anchor text as one cue for judging the content of the linked page. Natural anchor text that matches the theme of the linked page correctly conveys what the page is about and leads to appropriate evaluation.
Especially for internal links (links connecting pages within the same site), anchor text plays the role of conveying the site's structure and the relationships between pages to crawlers. By gathering links to a page on an important theme using highly relevant anchor text, that page's importance becomes easier to convey.
Anchor text can be divided into several types according to its relationship with the linked keyword. The representative ones are as follows.
Using these in a well-balanced way is important for keeping links in a natural state.
Make sure "what you can learn at the linked page" is conveyed by the text alone. Generic expressions like "here" or "click here for details" alone leave both users and search engines unable to predict the linked page.
Including the linked page's target keyword can be expected to yield higher SEO effectiveness. Referring to the linked page's title is also useful. However, the premise is to include it only within a natural context.
Linking from a long sentence makes the linked destination harder to judge at a glance. As a guide, keeping it to around 20–30 characters makes it easier for users to quickly understand the content.
For the same linked page, mixing and using exact match, partial match, branded, and natural-sentence forms helps avoid unnatural patterns. Note that the same anchor text appearing multiple times for the purpose of showing site structure is itself not a problem.
Overusing exact-match keywords to aim for higher rankings risks being seen as over-optimization. In the past, Google's Penguin update made such unnatural bias in anchor text a target for low evaluation or penalties. While it is said that today it is often simply ignored, unnatural links that look odd to users undermine trust, so they should still be avoided.
Expressions that are only "click here," or text unrelated to the linked page, are unhelpful to users and convey nothing to search engines. Set text that is consistent with the theme of the linked page.
Cramming in too many links, or placing multiple links too close together, harms usability and is undesirable for evaluation as well. It is important to place an appropriate number of links only where they are truly needed.
Rather than ending at setup, it is important to check effectiveness and improve. You can check the click status of internal links with access-analytics tools and grasp which anchor text is more clickable. The distribution of anchor text for external links (backlinks) can be visualized with SEO tools such as Ahrefs, showing the proportions of exact match, partial match, branded, and so on. Regularly check whether the exact-match ratio is too high, and if there is bias, diversify your expressions.
Anchor text is an important element that conveys the content of the linked page to both users and search engines. Making it concise so the linked destination is clear at a glance, including the target keyword naturally, and diversifying expressions across multiple links are the points that boost SEO effectiveness. On the other hand, you should avoid overusing exact match, keyword stuffing, and vague text. In 2026 SEO practice, anchor text is taken for granted as information that supports internal link design and site navigation. Aim for natural, easy-to-understand links for users, and keep reviewing them continuously through effectiveness measurement.
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