Anchor text
The visible, clickable words of a link, which tell readers and search engines what the destination page is about.
In depth
What it really means
Anchor text is a description of the destination written by someone else. That is why it carries weight: it is third-party testimony about what your page covers, at scale, from everyone who links to you.
It works the same way internally. Your own anchor text tells crawlers how you categorize your pages, which is why linking to a page as “click here” across your site wastes the strongest on-page signal you fully control.
How it works
- The words between the opening and closing anchor tag are the anchor text.
- Crawlers record it as a description of the destination URL.
- Repeated anchor patterns across many sources build an association between those words and that page.
- Screen readers can list all links on a page by anchor text alone, which is why vague anchors hurt accessibility.
Pros & cons
Pros
- One of the strongest relevance signals you control on internal links.
- Descriptive anchors improve accessibility and click-through at the same time.
- It costs nothing to fix on existing content.
Cons
- Over-optimized external anchor text is a spam signal and can trigger a manual action.
- You cannot control what other sites use as anchor text to you.
- Fixing it site-wide is tedious manual work.
Common mistakes
- “Click here”, “read more”, “this article”. These describe nothing and are useless to screen readers.
- Exact-match anchor text on every external link you build, which looks manipulated.
- Linking the same anchor phrase to two different pages, which creates keyword cannibalization.
- Anchor text that does not match what the destination actually covers.
- Linking whole sentences, which dilutes the signal across irrelevant words.
Best practices
- Describe the destination in two to five words.
- Vary the phrasing naturally across links rather than repeating one exact phrase.
- Make internal anchors specific, since you control them completely.
- Make sure the anchor text matches what the reader will actually find.
- Read your links out of context. If the anchor alone does not say where it goes, rewrite it.
FAQs
What is anchor text?
The visible clickable words of a hyperlink. They describe the destination to both readers and crawlers, which is what gives them ranking weight.
Does anchor text still matter?
Yes, particularly on internal links, where you control it entirely and it tells crawlers how your pages relate to each other.
Can anchor text be over-optimized?
Yes. A backlink profile where most anchors are the same exact-match phrase reads as manipulated and is a common trigger for a manual action.
What is the best internal anchor text?
Two to five words describing what the destination covers, varied naturally across links, and matching what the reader actually finds when they click.
Why is “click here” bad?
It describes nothing to crawlers and it is actively hostile to screen reader users, who often navigate by listing every link on a page by its anchor text.
Keep reading
Related on LymLyt
Beyond LymLyt
Further reading
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