Anchor text is the clickable, visible text of a link. It gives users and search engines clues about what the linked target page is about.Open glossary entry → is the text you click on in a link. For an Internal linking refers to links that connect pages within the same website. They control how search engines and users find and thematically classify content.Open glossary entry →, it provides important context about the meaning of the target page, together with the surrounding paragraph.

Descriptive anchor text helps users and search engines classify the target. Generic wording wastes this context:

  • Weak: click here, learn more, next
  • Better: optimize internal linking, set canonical tags correctly

Anchor text may be clear and descriptive, but it should remain natural and not sound exactly the same in every link. When the same anchor text points to several different target pages, conflicting signals arise that can dilute topical focus. Google recommends writing link text so that it clearly describes the linked content.

Why anchor text matters for search and AI #

The clickable text of a link is a relevance signal for the target page: it tells crawlers and language models what to expect behind the link. Descriptive anchors ("compare RankScan pricing plans") pass topical context; generic anchors ("click here", "more") pass none. Internally, consistent anchors also help establish which page should rank for a term.

Best practices #

  • Describe the target, not the action — avoid "here", "read more", bare URLs
  • Keep anchors short but specific (2–6 words)
  • Vary phrasing naturally; identical exact-match anchors everywhere look manipulative
  • Icon-only links need an accessible name (ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a standard that provides roles and attributes to make web content more accessible to assistive technologies when native HTML alone is not enough.Open glossary entry →-label or Alt text is a text alternative for an image, stored in the alt attribute of the img element, describing the content or function of the image.Open glossary entry →)