Anchor Text: Why Is It Important For Search Engine Optimization?

May 27th, 2019   |   Updated on October 4th, 2019

What is anchor text and when had you used it the last time? Have not you just the other hyperlinked specific next to direct traffics to another page on your website. This very text is known as anchor text. If done right, it can bolster your SEO efforts.

Anchor text is the visible and clickable text in a link. Why should it matter?

It will always “matter” as long as backlinks matter.

A backlink is a link from another website. The backlink anchor text is the anchor text used by other websites linking to your website. The anchor text of these backlinks helps search engines determine the most relevant keywords a web page should rank for.

Link Building is performed to increase the number of links pointing to a particular website. This is to ensure that the website receiving the inbound links will rank high on the search engines.

The question is: what kind of anchor text should you use? Should you limit the use of a specific type of anchor text if you want to rank in search engines?

The anchor text must talk about the content of the landing page. If the anchor text is “pay per click”, the landing page should have something to do with pay per click. In the same manner, if the anchor text is “search engine optimization”, the landing page should talk about search engine optimization. Doing otherwise is considered an ineffective use of anchor text.

1. Anchor Text: An Algorithm Factor?
2. Anchor Text Manipulation: A Red Flag From The Search Engines?

1. Anchor Text: An Algorithm Factor?

The objective of the anchor text is to tell the search engines about the content of the landing page. If a particular website receives several inbound links using the anchor text “Web Marketing”, it will be interpreted as a website offering web marketing services. This means that the website has a higher chance to appear on the search results for “Web Marketing” keyword. The same is true with other anchor texts.

Organically, the website receiving the inbound link has no control over the anchor text used by the website giving the link. At least this is how it should be. How can you control it when you are not the one giving the link? In natural search engine optimization, the link giver creates the anchor text.

However, this is not always the case with link building and anchor text. Some webmasters and web marketers wanted to take the shorter route to higher search engine ranking and thus came the anchor text manipulation.

Some webmasters use the anchor text as a way to appear on the search results for keywords of their choice. And yes they can control this especially with link exchange methods or reciprocal linking.

2. Anchor Text Manipulation: A Red Flag From The Search Engines?

The search engines, especially Google, are also aware of anchor text manipulation. But since anchor text is a way of telling the search engines what the website is all about, it may be hard to ignore it on the search engine algorithms. As long as anchor texts are relevant, there is a higher chance that it will be considered as vital in computing a website’s ranking on the search results.