“What is anchor text?”
“How does anchor text affect SEO?”
Are you writing the “anchor text” appropriately when setting up a link?
Anchor text is the text that appears as a link.
It is one of the internal factors that directly affects SEO.
Even if you know the importance of links in SEO, there are surprisingly many people who don’t know the importance of anchor text.
If you neglect anchor text measures, it may have a negative impact on SEO evaluation and usability.
Therefore, in this article, we have explained the following topics:
When setting up a link, whether the link destination is an internal page or an external site, you should write the anchor text appropriately.
If you check these points, you will be able to improve your SEO effectiveness when setting up links in the future, so be sure to check them out.
Table of contents
What is anchor text?
Anchor text refers to the text used for links.
The blue text below is the anchor text.
Example: Webma is a web marketing information media operated by Xcore Co., Ltd.
The navigation menu text is also an anchor text.
Anchor text is also called “link text.”
In the HTML code, write it as follows.
<a href=”Link destination URL”>Anchor text</a>
The role of anchor text
Anchor text has two main roles.
I will explain each in detail.
1. Tell users what the link is about
The first role is to tell the user what kind of web page the link destination is.
Users refer to the anchor text to determine whether the link destination has the information they need.
If they look at the anchor text and think it has information that matches their interests, they will click on it, and if it doesn’t, they won’t.
Therefore, the content of the anchor text is important, especially for links to pages you want users to view.
Writing clear anchor text will help users find the information they are looking for.
You can also easily decide whether you should look at the linked page or not.
This means we can provide a better user experience.
The quality of the user experience will naturally affect the evaluation from Google, which has a “user first” philosophy.
2. Tell search engines what the link is about
Anchor text tells both users and search engines what the link is about.
Google’s “Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide” also states the following:
The more effective your anchor text, the easier it will be for users to navigate and the easier it will be for Google to understand the page you are linking to.
Quote source :Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide – Writing Effective Link Text
For example, let’s say your anchor text contains the words “Content SEO.”
This will make it easier for Google’s crawlers to recognize that the link destination is a page related to content SEO.
Google employee John Mueller also said the following on Twitter:
Most links provide a bit of additional context through anchor text.
Quote source: Twitter – @JohnMu
In this way, anchor text helps users and search engines infer what the linked page is about.
How anchor text affects SEO
So, does anchor text directly affect search rankings?
In conclusion, although the magnitude of its influence is not certain, anchor text does affect the search ranking of “linking page”.
This is because Google also uses the content of the anchor text as a reference to evaluate the “relevance between the linked page and the search keyword.”
A 1998 paper by Google’s Sergey Brin et al. also states the following:
In particular, link structure [Page 98] and link text provide a lot of information for relevance determination and quality filtering. Google uses both link structure and anchor text.
Quote source: The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
In the early days of Google, the influence of keywords contained in anchor text was quite large, and even pages with no content could be ranked high for a specific keyword.
reference: Search Engine Roundtable – Yes, Anchor Text Is A Google Ranking Factor
However, the algorithm at the time made it possible to fraudulently manipulate rankings using anchor text, so Google has adjusted its algorithm.
As of 2022, we don’t know how much anchor text will affect rankings, but we do know that anchor text is still being used to help understand pages.
Therefore, it is important to be aware of the keywords in the anchor text, especially when setting up internal links (links to other pages within the site).
In the next chapter, we’ll start by introducing examples of anchor text to avoid.
Examples of anchor text to avoid
The basic idea of anchor text is that it is easy to understand for both users and search engines.
It’s easy to do this, but avoid anchor text like the one below, as it makes it difficult to understand the information the link is linking to.
- Write the URL as is
(*In some cases, it may be appropriate to write the URL, such as when advertising a new website address.)
example: https://webma.○○○/●●●/123456/
- Use abstract text
example: “click here” “Click here for details” “Read more“
- Use extremely long text
example: One of the elements that has become increasingly important in SEO in recent years is “EAT”. E-A-T is a coined word consisting of the initials of Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
Google’s “Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide” clearly states that anchor text like the one above should be avoided.
Additionally, although this is not official information from Google, the following anchor text should also be avoided in the SEO world.
- exact match anchor text
(Use the countermeasure keyword of the linked page as it is as anchor text. *The reason will be explained in the next chapter.)
example: “SEO long tail keywords“
In the next chapter, we will introduce points to keep in mind when creating effective anchor text.
Tips for creating effective anchor text
There are three points to keep in mind when creating anchor text:
I will explain each in detail.
1. Explain the content of the link destination concisely and specifically
In your anchor text, be sure to concisely and specifically describe the content of the page you are linking to.
If your anchor text is redundant or abstract, both users and search engines will have a hard time understanding what the linked page is about.
for example,”click here” rather than abstract text such as “Download SEO know-how materials” makes it easier to convey the link destination information to both users and search engines.
It’s best when users can understand the content of a link at a glance and feel comfortable clicking on it.
2. Use keywords in moderation
As mentioned above, search engines associate anchor text with the content of the page it links to.
Therefore, for example, if the link destination is a page that you want to rank high for the keyword “SEO article count”, you should include the keyword “SEO article count” in the anchor text.
If the page title you are linking to is optimized, there is no problem using the page title as anchor text as shown in the image above.
However, partial matches are preferred over exact matches for anchor text.
- Exact match (use the countermeasure keyword of the linked page as is)
example:”Number of SEO articles“
- Partial match (partially includes the countermeasure keyword of the linked page)
example:”Learn about the relationship between SEO and number of articles“
This is because partial match anchor text provides more information to search engines and users than exact match anchor text.
Also, if you use too much exact match anchor text, you run the risk of Google seeing it as an attempt to manipulate your rankings.
Basically, include keywords in the anchor text to “convey the content of the linked page.”
3. Write alt attribute in image link
If you use an image as a link, be sure to include the alt attribute.
This is because the alt attribute plays the role of anchor text in image links.
The alt attribute is text that describes the content of the image to search engines.
If the image cannot be displayed to the user for some reason, or if the user uses a screen reader to read the web page, the text will be substituted.
The alt attribute must accurately represent the content of the image.
Please refer to the page below, which explains in detail how to write the alt attribute and its effects.
What is the alt attribute? Explaining the four important reasons for SEO and how to write appropriately -webma-
Points to note when creating links
Finally, here are some points to keep in mind when creating links.
If you do not follow the following three points, you may end up lowering your ranking from Google, so be sure to check them carefully.
1. Do not specify unrelated pages as link destinations
Before creating a link, check whether there is a need to create a link in the first place and whether there are any problems with the linked page.
Linking to unrelated pages will not help your users.
Ideally, you should include links that relate to questions that people who view your page might have or want to learn more about.
By doing so, you can increase user satisfaction, and search engines may also evaluate your website as having a high level of topic coverage.
2. Don’t make it a hidden link
Hidden links violate Google’s guidelines.
Hidden links are links that Google’s crawlers can read, but users can’t see.
Google describes hidden links and hidden text as follows on its official page:
Text such as excessive keywords may be hidden in the following ways:
- Use white text on a white background
- Put text behind image
- Position text off-screen using CSS
- Set font size to 0
- Hide links by linking only one small character (such as a hyphen in a paragraph)
Quote source: Google Search Central – Hidden Text and Hidden Links
Avoid using hidden links, as this will be seen as an attempt to fraudulently manipulate rankings, and you may be penalized by Google.
A link’s anchor text must be distinguishable from other text.
Make it easy for users to distinguish between regular text and link anchor text. If a user misses a link or clicks on a link by mistake, the content becomes less useful.
Quote source: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide – Format links for easy discovery
Use a style that is easy for users to recognize as a link.
3. Don’t take excessive measures
Anchor text that includes too many keywords may violate the guidelines.
Google lists the following link programs as ones that can have a negative impact on rankings:
Larger article marketing and guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links.
Quote source: Google Search Central – Link Program
Of course, it is also a no-no to post a large number of links that are of no use to users.
If it’s a good idea to post links multiple times for user convenience, that’s fine.
But don’t abuse anchor text and links just to improve your rankings.
[Summary] Anchor text is effective for SEO! Explain the linked page in an easy-to-understand manner
Anchor text tells users and search engines what the linked page is about.
By writing easy-to-understand anchor text, you can improve usability and help search engines properly evaluate the linked page.
This is a factor that can affect search rankings, so be sure to keep the points introduced in this article in mind when optimizing your site.
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