Anchor Text: How to Write Link Text That Helps Both Users and Rankings

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a link, the words between <a href="..."> and </a>. It does two jobs at once. It tells a reader what they will get if they click, and it tells search engines what the linked page is about. Google has said for years that anchor text is one of the signals it uses to understand the target page, which means the words you choose for a link are a small on-page ranking input for the page you are linking to, not the page the link sits on.

So the goal is anchor text that describes the destination in plain, specific words. "Our redirect checker" tells both the reader and Google what is on the other end. "Click here" tells them nothing. That gap is most of this topic. This post covers the anchor types, where descriptive matters most, and the two places the rules genuinely diverge: internal links you fully control, and external links you often do not.

The anchor text types

There are a handful of recognizable anchor patterns, and each has a use:

Exact-match anchors use the target's keyword verbatim: linking to a page about redirect chains with the text "redirect chains." Precise, but overusing them on links you control looks manipulative, which matters more for external links (below).

Partial-match anchors wrap the keyword in natural language: "how to fix redirect chains and loops." This is the workhorse for internal links, because it is descriptive and reads like a sentence.

Branded anchors use your name or a product name: "SEOtest.app" or "the Schema Markup Generator." Natural, safe, and the normal way to reference a named thing.

Naked URL anchors are the raw address as the link text: "https://seotest.app/tools/redirect-checker." Fine occasionally, but it wastes the descriptive opportunity.

Generic anchors are the content-free ones: "click here," "read more," "this page," "learn more." These are the ones to avoid, and the next section is why.

Why "click here" fails

"Click here" and "read more" fail on three counts, and the accessibility one is the most concrete.

For readers, generic anchors force people to read the surrounding sentence to figure out where the link goes, and many people scan rather than read. A link that says "our guide to fixing redirect chains" is understood at a glance; "click here" is not.

For search engines, the anchor is a description of the destination. "Click here" describes nothing, so you waste the small ranking signal the link could have passed to the target page. Ten internal links all saying "learn more" tell Google nothing about the ten different pages they point to.

For screen reader users, it is worse than a missed opportunity. Screen readers can pull all the links on a page into a single list so the user can navigate by links, and that list shows only the anchor text, out of context. A page whose link list reads "click here, click here, read more, click here, learn more" is unusable. The image alt text guide covers the parallel problem for images; the shared principle is that the accessible name of an element has to make sense on its own.

Before and after

The fix is almost always to move the description into the link text:

Before: To check your redirects, click here. After: Check your redirects with our redirect checker.

Before: We wrote about this in more detail. Read more. After: We covered this in the guide to 301 vs 302 redirects.

Before: For our full checklist, see this page. After: Work through our on-page SEO checklist before you publish.

In every case the link now stands alone. Read just the anchor text and you know where it goes.

Internal links: describe freely

On internal links, the ones between pages on your own site, you have full control and a lot of freedom. Use descriptive, keyword-aware anchor text deliberately, because you are helping Google understand your own pages and helping users navigate. There is no realistic penalty for using exact-match or partial-match anchors on your own internal links; this is standard site architecture, and it is one of the levers in a good internal linking strategy.

The only internal-linking mistake worth naming is sameness: using the identical exact-match anchor for every link to a given page, on hundreds of pages, in a way that reads like it was scripted. Vary the phrasing naturally. But err toward descriptive. Vague internal anchors are a wasted opportunity on pages you fully control.

External links: watch over-optimization

External links, links from other sites to yours, are where anchor text over-optimization is a real risk, and the reason is that Google treats inbound anchor text as a signal about your page that other people are vouching for. If a large share of your backlinks use the same exact-match commercial anchor ("cheap car insurance quotes") pointing at the same page, that pattern looks manufactured, because organic links rarely all say the same keyword. Google's link spam systems can discount or flag that kind of over-optimized anchor profile.

You do not control what other sites use as anchor text, and that is fine: a natural backlink profile is a mix of branded anchors, your URL, your page title, and assorted partial matches, because that is how real people link. When you do influence external anchors (a guest post, a resource submission, a partner link), reach for branded or natural-language anchors rather than stuffing the exact commercial keyword. The rule of thumb: on your own site, be descriptive on purpose; on links from other sites, let variety happen and do not engineer exact-match anchors at scale.

A quick self-check

Skim your last few articles and read only the link text, ignoring everything around it. If you hit "click here," "read more," or "this page," rewrite those into descriptions of their destinations. If every internal link to one page uses the exact same keyword phrase, vary a few. That two-minute pass fixes most anchor text problems, and it is worth doing alongside the rest of your on-page checklist.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is anchor text a ranking factor?

Yes, in a specific way. Google uses anchor text to understand what the linked page is about, so the words you use for a link are a small on-page signal for the target page, not the page the link sits on. Descriptive anchor text helps Google interpret the destination correctly.

Why is "click here" bad for links?

It describes nothing. Readers have to read the surrounding sentence to know where the link goes, search engines get no information about the destination, and screen reader users, who can pull up a list of a page's links out of context, see only a meaningless "click here." Descriptive anchor text fixes all three.

Can I over-optimize internal link anchor text?

Realistically, no, as long as you vary the phrasing naturally. Descriptive, keyword-aware anchors on your own internal links are standard site architecture and help Google understand your pages. The only thing to avoid is using the identical exact-match anchor for the same page across hundreds of pages in an obviously scripted way.

How is anchor text over-optimization different for external links?

Google treats inbound anchor text from other sites as third-party vouching, so an unnatural pattern (many backlinks using the same exact commercial keyword to one page) can look manufactured and get discounted by link spam systems. A natural backlink profile mixes branded anchors, URLs, and varied phrases, so avoid engineering exact-match external anchors at scale.

What makes anchor text accessible?

Anchor text should make sense on its own, without the surrounding sentence, because screen readers can list a page's links in isolation. Write link text that describes the destination ("download the pricing sheet") rather than generic phrases ("click here"), so the link is understandable out of context.