SEO Glossary: Anchor text

What exactly is an anchor text?

If users click on a hyperlink that leads to another website or document is called an anchor text. It is highlighted and stands out from the rest of the text to encourage users to click. At best, an anchor text describes what the user can expect on the linked page or document.

 

It is also possible to add a mouse-over effect. This ensures that the anchor text is visualized and therefore stands out even more.

 

If the user moves the mouse over the link, the anchor text including the link is visually enlarged and highlighted. However, the rest of the text around it remains unchanged so that a clear link can be recognized.

 

Furthermore, the placement of anchor texts is an important part of search engine optimization. They are used to help search engines recognize Google signals for INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL LINKING to send.

 

 

How does an anchor text work and how is it structured?

If the user clicks on your anchor text, they will be taken to the linked target page. Both the URL of the target page and the corresponding anchor text are stored in the HTML code. In addition, it does not matter whether the anchor text links to an internal or external page.

 

The aim should be to choose a text that is as meaningful as possible as the anchor text. It should fit thematically with the target page and give the user an incentive to access the content.

How important are anchor texts in terms of SEO?

Search engines such as Google permanently evaluate the linking of a website. The anchor text is included in order to evaluate the entire link. For this reason, it is important to ensure that links are as natural as possible.

 

This is because Google is constantly trying to recognize artificial link building and distinguish it from natural link building. The best example of this is the Penguin update introduced in April 2012. This algorithm independently recognizes the overuse or misuse of keywords, which is also known as keyword stuffing is also known as keyword stuffing. As a result, the page is penalized, which has a negative impact on the ranking.

 

For this reason, anchor texts should not be kept too general and should not contain any general or simple keywords, for example. Instead, individual keywords or short sentences that describe the content of the target page in more detail score points here.

 

Anchor texts also play an important role when it comes to accessibility. If people are visually impaired or even blind, a good anchor text helps them to find their way around better. In this case, the text and anchor texts are read by a screen reader.