Any text that denotes the hyperlink can be considered anchor text. Basically, a clickable link where users find their destination page. For instance, if you are writing an article on “ 5 things that Salesforce does that others don’t”, then you can hyperlink “Salesforce does” and add your URL destination. Then ” Salesforce does ” becomes your anchor text. The anchor text might be external, internal, or outbound. Now let’s assume that another website is providing the backlink to your website, and they include the text “ According to insight from tech.com “ assuming that tech.com is your website. So do you notice how anchor text works? It’s pretty straightforward
How does anchor text appear in the URL
When Google crawls a link, it looks for the href attribute; it’s denoted by the HTML <a> element. The href attribute makes sure the destination URL is specified, while the anchor text finds its way in the opening and closing tags.
Take a look at this example the
<a href=”https://tech.com/salesforce-cloud-vitals-guide”> According to our testing </a>
https://tech.com/salesforce-cloud-vitals-guide = destination URL
According to our testing = Clickable text or anchor text
There is one case that you should know: if the link does not have descriptive text. Then Google would use the title text as a fallback.
How to write good anchor text according to Google
According to Google documentation, good anchor text is text that is relevant to the page and the one that is pointed to. For instance, let’s say that you are writing an article on “ best seo practices in 2026.” Now, if you write your anchor text as “ find the best backlink checker by clicking here,” that’s a weak anchor text, but when you write “ our tested backlink checker is found here,” then this anchor text is strong.
This is because the second one shows the user what they’ll find on the destination page if they click. Which is much better than a generic page like “ click here”. Google also suggests that if the anchor text alone suggests value to the user, without any surrounding content, then it’s worth using. If the answer is yes, then you can add the anchor text; otherwise, you need to rethink or remove it.
Mistakes to avoid while performing anchor text optimization
Anchor text helps people to understand the link destination, but if the anchor text has been placed only for seo then it can be treated as link manipulation. These are a few tips that you could follow
Forceful placement: This is where seo writers place anchor text without any relevance. This has only been done to meet the seo need, not to provide any value to the reader. So if you write something like “ make sure to explore our guide in 2026” and genuinely link a listicle or guide to it, then that would be a natural placement.
Side-by-side building: This is where you need to be very careful. Linking side by side can be the worst for your business. For instance, if you write “ check our seo guide” then type “ Read our keyword guide,” this kind of link-building text would hamper your site’s reputation, since readers would be confused about what to do next
Long anchor texts: anchor text should always be short and precise without making things complicated. Long anchor text is not bad, but unnecessarily long ones do more harm than good. If you write something as “ read our detailed guide on seo” and make the entire text a hyperlink? Won’t that look awkward? It definitely will. Now if you write “ explore our seo guide,” this fits the agenda beautifully
Using the same generic text for multiple pages can confuse the reader. This is the reason we always say that generic text won’t be of much use. So if you have multiple pages of seo like technical seo, on page seo and off page seo then rather than using general text like ” learn more or click here you can use something more contextual, like seo checklist and 5 step on page seo guide.
Internal and external anchor text
Internal anchor text is basically used in guest posts where you control the entire wording structure, and external anchor text is controlled by other website owners. When you do internal anchor text, everything is at your disposal. You control the content structure; you control where it will be placed, basically you are the boss when you do internal anchor text. With external anchor text, you are not in control. The website owner would decide what anchor text they would use, but before they use the link, make sure that you tell them to use anchor text that has a partial match, a branded match, and can provide real value to the readers when they click the link.
How to measure your anchor text
When you internally audit your anchor text, you find problems with internal navigation and detect unnatural patterns that can improve your website. The fastest possible way is to do it in three ways.
First, make sure that you purchase seo tools like sem rush and Screaming Frog, which will tell you what to do and how to audit your profile. The features will clearly show the anchor text that has been used in your profile and which links they point to. For instance, if the audit shows that several articles used generic phrases like click here and read more, try using descriptive words to make the content more valuable
Next, make sure of the sites that are linking back to you. If you see an unusual amount of anchor text linking back to you with no relevant context, make sure you contact the website owner and ask them to remove it. Normally, they would do it. If they do not, use the disavow tool.
Third, you should read the anchor text without the surrounding sentence. If you read out loud and the wording seems vague and unnecessary, remove it. The goal is to make every anchor text a source of the destination page, which means whenever the click is secured, the user finds something helpful
In conclusion
Anchor text needs your attention since it contributes to internal and external linking; if not done correctly, then your website can suffer a hit and can be considered link manipulation. This is the reason we always say that we should use anchor text in formats like branded, partial, and exact. Make sure they fit in the content naturally without sounding awkward. Never forget to add a <a ref > element and add descriptive alt text when the image acts as a link.
