What Is Anchor Text?

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink, the words you see and click. Google reads it as a clue to what the linked page is about. A descriptive anchor like "Kuala Lumpur wedding photographer" tells engines and readers more than "click here". Google's guidance is to keep anchors descriptive, concise, and relevant, and it treats keyword-stuffed links as a spam signal.

What does anchor text do?

Anchor text gives both people and search engines a preview of a link's destination before they click. Google puts it plainly: "Link text (also known as anchor text) is the text part of a link that you can see. This text tells users and Google something about the page you're linking to" (Google SEO Starter Guide).

That preview does two jobs. It helps a reader decide whether to click, and it helps Google understand and discover the page you point to. Because engines read the anchor as a short description of the target, a page linked with clear anchors is easier to classify.

Anchor text comes in a few common forms:

Anchor type	What it looks like
Exact-match	The target's main keyword ("digital marketing agency")
Branded	A business name ("Storming Solutions")
Naked URL	The raw web address
Generic	"click here", "read more"
Descriptive	A natural phrase that describes the page

What does good anchor text look like?

Good anchor text is descriptive, concise, and relevant to both pages it connects. Google's "Make your links crawlable" guidance says good link text is "descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to the page that it's on and to the page it links to".

That guidance was last updated in December 2025 (Google Search Central).

A quick test is to read the anchor alone, out of context. If it still tells you where the link goes, it works. The same Google guidance warns against generic wording, anchors that run oddly long, and stuffing keywords into a link.

Linking the phrase "our internal linking guide" is clearer than linking a bare "here", and it helps Google connect the two pages.

Can anchor text hurt your SEO?

Yes. Anchor text can hurt your rankings when it looks manipulated. A flood of identical, keyword-rich anchors pointing at one money page is a classic footprint of bought links. Google's link spam examples include "paid guest posts with optimized anchor text", the exact pattern link sellers produce.

In our experience, the clearest sign of a bought-link profile is a run of exact-match commercial anchors a real editor would never write. Natural links vary instead. Editorial backlinks from real sites use your brand name, the article title, or a plain phrase, rarely the same keyword twice.

This is why forcing keywords into links you control, or paying for links with dictated anchors, works against you. Over-optimized internal anchors carry less risk than external ones, but they still read unnaturally.

Frequently asked questions

Should anchor text always be my target keyword?

No. Forcing your main keyword into every link is exactly the pattern Google flags as manipulation. Natural links use a mix: your brand name, the page title, a naked URL, and descriptive phrases. Aim for anchors that read normally to a person and still describe the destination. If every link to a page uses the identical keyword phrase, that uniformity signals intent more than relevance.

What is the difference between anchor text and a title tag?

Anchor text is the visible wording of a link on one page; a title tag is the page's own title in the HTML head. Anchor text describes where a link goes, while a title tag describes the page you are on and often becomes its clickable headline in results. Both tell Google about a page's topic, but they sit in different places and do different jobs.

Does anchor text matter for internal links?

Yes. Internal links between your own pages rely on anchor text to tell Google what each destination covers. Descriptive internal anchors help engines understand your site structure and can lift the pages you point to. That is why linking real phrases beats a repeated "read more". Internal anchors carry less risk than external ones, though stuffing them still reads unnaturally to both readers and engines.

How long should anchor text be?

Keep it short and specific, usually a few words. Google advises against anchors that run oddly long, like a whole sentence, and against single generic words that say nothing. A phrase of two to five descriptive words is a good target: long enough to make sense alone, short enough to stay clean. The goal is clarity for a reader skimming your links, not room for extra keywords.

Can I control the anchor text of links from other sites?

Usually not. When another site links to you editorially, the author picks the wording, and that natural variety is healthy. You can suggest anchor text in a guest contribution or a press mention, but demanding exact-match keywords is what turns a legitimate mention into a scheme. Focus on being worth linking to, and the anchors that result will look natural because they are.

Writing links that actually help

Storming Solutions runs SEO, AEO, and GEO for Malaysian businesses, and clean linking is part of the technical groundwork we set. Our position: anchor text should serve the reader first, because links written for engines alone are the ones that eventually look manipulated.

If your site or backlink profile is full of "click here" or the same keyword repeated, message us on WhatsApp for a second opinion, or start with our SEO in Malaysia guide.