Anchor Text: The Clickable Words of a Link and How to Choose Them
Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a link, the words between the opening and closing a tags. Google says good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant to the page it points to, and it warns against cramming in keywords. For a product link, the product’s name or a plain description of what it does usually reads best.
What exactly is anchor text?
In the markup of a link, the anchor text is whatever sits between the tags: in <a href="https://example.com">a mood journal for runners</a>, it is “a mood journal for runners”. It does two jobs. For a reader it promises what the next page will be. For a search engine it supplies a short description of the destination, which is why Google’s guidance spends a section on it.
When a link has no words, Google falls back to other clues. For an image link it uses the image’s alt text as the anchor, and if an anchor tag is empty it can use the title attribute. An empty link with an image that has no alt text leaves nothing to read, which Google lists as a bad example. We read these points in its documentation on making links crawlable on 13 November 2026.
Six kinds of anchor text, shown on one product
Take an invented product named Stridelog, a mood journal for runners. Here is how six common anchors for the same link compare.
| Type | Example | How it reads | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand | Stridelog | Clear and natural; people use it when they mention a product by name | Meaningless to a stranger who has never heard of it |
| Descriptive | a mood journal for runners | Tells the reader and the crawler what is there | Can drift into a slogan if you let it |
| Bare address | stridelog.example | Common in text where someone pastes a link | Gives little context |
| Generic | click here | Says nothing about the destination | Google’s guide lists it as too generic |
| Image with alt text | A logo whose alt reads Stridelog | Works when the alt is meaningful | Empty alt leaves the link with no words at all |
| Keyword stuffed | best free running mood journal app download | Reads as written for a search engine | Google’s guidance warns against cramming keywords in |
Real links mix these. A product that people mention freely tends to collect a mixture of brand names, descriptions and bare addresses. A set of identical keyword strings is the unusual one.
What does Google ask of anchor text?
- Be descriptive, concise and relevant to the page it sits on and the page it points to.
- Write as naturally as possible. Google’s guide says to resist cramming in every related keyword, and states that keyword stuffing violates its spam policies.
- Read the anchors alone. Its tip is to read only the link text out of context and check whether it makes sense by itself.
- Mind the words around the link. The sentence as a whole gives context, and chains of links side by side lose it.
- Keep it short. A whole sentence as the anchor is its own bad example.
Its spam policies also name “links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts, or press releases distributed on other sites”. If you hand out press material, give the name of the product and a plain description, and do not specify a search phrase.
How do you choose the anchor text for links you control?
- On your own pages, link with a description of the destination. “See the launch metrics to track” beats “see this page” because the words themselves say where it goes.
- In a profile or a README, use your product’s name. People searching for it by name will find the page, and the name is what other people will copy when they link.
- In a listing, accept the site’s format. The title field is the anchor on many sites, so a clear name there serves better than a slogan.
- When someone asks how to link to you, offer the name and one plain line. Do not hand over a keyword.
When you launch your product free, the product name and tagline you enter are what visitors see, so write them as you would want them quoted. The tagline formulas page offers shapes that stay descriptive without sounding like an advert.
How can you see the words people use for you?
Google Search Console’s Links report has a Top linking text table, covering links from outside your site. It combines case-insensitive duplicates, shows image links with no text as “(empty)” and is meant for confirming that the link text is what you expect and not spammy. Look at it a month after a listing goes live. If your name leads the table, things look natural. If you see strings you never wrote, someone may be creating links on your behalf, and the report is the place to notice it.
A product still looking for its first links can browse the ideas on the board to see how other makers describe what they are building, which is a good way to find wording that others will quote.
What goes wrong with anchor text?
The classic mistake is to treat it as a lever. Makers read that anchors carry weight, then ask every site that links to them to use one phrase. The result looks planned, and Google’s spam policy names optimized anchor text as a pattern. A quieter mistake is the generic anchor on your own pages, where a link reading “read more” wastes a chance to tell readers and crawlers where it goes. A third is a link that carries no words, such as a logo with empty alt text.
Related terms: a backlink is a link whose anchor you rarely control, a ugc link is one inside user-written text, and a referring domain is the site the anchor sits on. For the wider question of what listings are worth, read do launch directories give backlinks.
Frequently asked questions
What is anchor text?
It is the visible, clickable words of a link. In a link to your site that reads “a mood journal for runners”, those words are the anchor text. Readers use them to guess the destination, and search engines use them as a short description of the page being linked.
What makes good anchor text?
Google says it should be descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant to both pages. It should read naturally in the sentence and make sense when read alone. A product name or a plain description of what the product does is usually safe. Keyword strings and generic phrases are weaker choices.
Is exact-match anchor text bad?
Repeating one exact keyword phrase across many links looks engineered. Google’s spam policies name optimized anchor text in distributed articles and guest posts, and its link guide warns against keyword stuffing. An occasional descriptive phrase is natural, but never ask a site to link with a phrase you chose.
Can an image be anchor text?
Yes. For an image link, Google uses the alt attribute of the image as the anchor text, so write meaningful alt text. An image link with empty alt text gives the crawler nothing to read. Where the image is a logo, the alt text should be the product’s name.
How do I see the anchor text pointing to my site?
Open Google Search Console, go to the Links report and read the Top linking text table under External links. It groups duplicates and shows image links without text as empty. It does not show whether a link is nofollow, so open the linking page to check that.
Written by Post your build ideas with AI assistance and edited for this site. Where a page names another product, the facts came from that product’s own pages on the date shown above; terms change, so check them before you rely on them. About the publisher.