AI search and working with a developer
What is Anchor text?
Anchor text is the visible, clickable words of a link. It tells both users and search engines what to expect at the destination, and it is one of the strongest relevance signals available — which is why manipulating it aggressively is also detectable.
Also called: link text
Writing it well
- Describe the destination: "technical SEO guide" rather than "click here"
- Keep it natural — a sentence that reads oddly to fit a keyword reads oddly to everyone
- Vary it. Identical anchors across a site look engineered because they are
- Never use the URL itself as anchor text where a description would help
The accessibility overlap
Screen reader users can list every link on a page. A page whose links all say "read more" is unusable that way, which is why descriptive anchor text is an accessibility requirement as well as an SEO one.
The external-link footprint
Fifteen client sites all linking back with identical anchor text is a pattern, and patterns are what detection looks for. Varying the wording and the placement is the difference between a credit link and a footprint.
Where this is covered in depth
A definition can only go so far. The 35 types of SEO, explained without the padding covers this properly — 6 minutes, free, no email required.
Who wrote this
Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. These definitions come from client work rather than from a content brief — where an entry describes a mistake, it is usually one found on a real site. More about how I work.