Anchor text is of great importance to SEO because it can show Google what a page is about. In fact, the use of anchor text as a ranking signal is included in several Google patents. SEO is a complex matter that consists of thousands of small details. Anchor text is one of those details.

Anchor text is one of the indicators Google uses to determine relevance. Careful use of anchor text can increase readers’ trust in your brand and the content you share on your website. In addition, it boosts your SEO efforts by giving search engine crawlers the right signals. Internal linking is important because it transfers link authority from one page to the next.

Typically, the home page of a site contains the most links that point to it. By using internal links, it helps distribute the authority that the homepage has received from their backlink profile. In particular, the keywords used in anchor text can influence keyword rankings. By using the keyword in anchor text, it signals Google which page should rank for that keyword.

According to Google, anchors also help the algorithm crawl content that cannot or cannot provide a copy on the Internet for indexing. To create anchor text, simply highlight the words you want to link to, click the hyperlink tool in your content management system, and add the link. A simple hyperlink consists of three parts: the anchor element tags, a rel%3d noopener target%3d _blank href attribute, and the anchor text (see image above). With this in mind, you may also want to avoid using the same anchor words in an entire body of text, even if you link to different websites each time.

In the earlier days of search engine optimization, when you could get away with pretty much anything, people who wanted to rank for “dog training” simply sent all their anchors as “dog training.” In both cases, you help search engine crawlers and users understand what the landing page is about by providing meaningful anchor text. While anchor text is one of many Google ranking factors, it also shows your readers where to find more information and what’s on the other side of your links. Hey Matt, say you need to set up some links with the generic or brand anchor, would you use PBNS for this or any other type of link so you can save your PBNS just for the target anchor.

This goes against the typical advice you see that focuses on what anchor texts you should use based on certain ratios. This is important because the spam links and aggressive anchor text will be transferred to your new page or domain. One day, you might wake up and Google could have updated to see the difference between branded and exact match anchor text for EMDs. It’s important that your anchor text is clear and concise, but be careful not to tweak too much until the text sounds spammy.