Anchor Text Best Practices for Internal and External Links

What anchor text actually is

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink — the words a visitor actually sees and clicks, as distinct from the underlying URL the link technically points to. "Click here" and "our complete guide to fixing broken canonical tags" might both technically link to the exact same destination URL, but they carry meaningfully different information for both a real reader and a search engine trying to understand what that destination page is actually about.

Why anchor text genuinely matters as a real signal

Search engines have long used anchor text as a real, direct signal for understanding what a linked page is actually about — a link with descriptive, relevant anchor text pointing to a specific page reinforces what that page's actual subject matter genuinely is, both for internal links within a site and for external, inbound links from other sites entirely.

Internal anchor text — genuinely, fully within a site's own control

Be descriptive, honestly and specifically. "Learn about redirect chains" tells both a real reader and a search engine meaningfully more than a generic "click here" or "read more" ever can about what the linked destination actually contains.

Keep it genuinely natural, not artificially stuffed. The anchor text should read as a normal, natural part of the surrounding sentence — not an awkward, obviously inserted phrase that clearly exists purely to plant a specific target keyword rather than to genuinely communicate something to the reader.

Vary the phrasing across different links pointing to the same destination page. Using the identical exact-match anchor text every single time a specific page gets linked from elsewhere on the site can look artificial and manipulative rather than genuinely natural, even for links entirely within a single site's own control.

External anchor text — a meaningfully more delicate, sensitive area

When a site is receiving external, inbound links from other sites, the actual anchor text used is controlled by whoever created the linking page, not by the site being linked to. A backlink profile with an unnaturally large proportion of exact-match keyword anchors, rather than a genuinely natural mix including brand names, plain URLs, and generic phrases like "this article," can look manipulative to search engines — this specific pattern has historically been directly associated with manipulative, low-quality link-building schemes.

What a genuinely natural anchor text profile actually looks like

A healthy, organic mix, typically including: brand or site name mentions, naked or plain URLs used as the anchor itself, generic phrases like "this article" or "here," genuinely partial keyword matches, and a comparatively smaller share of true, exact-match keyword anchors. Real, organic link-building — genuine mentions, citations, and shares happening naturally — tends to naturally, organically produce exactly this kind of varied, mixed distribution without anyone deliberately engineering it that way.

What genuinely, actively raises a real red flag

A large, disproportionate share of a site's total inbound backlinks all using the identical, exact same keyword-rich anchor text. This specific pattern is a well-documented, historically real signal of manipulative or purchased link schemes, since genuine, organic linking essentially never naturally produces that level of uniform, repeated consistency across many entirely independent sources.

What to actually do about anchor text on incoming links a site doesn't control

Since a site can't directly control what anchor text other sites choose to use when linking to it, the realistic, practical response is monitoring the overall pattern through a backlink analysis tool, and specifically disavowing individual links only in genuinely serious, clearly manipulative cases — not attempting to control or micromanage every individual external link's specific anchor text, which is neither realistic nor actually necessary for the overwhelming majority of real, legitimate sites.

The realistic, practical guidance for what actually is within a site's control

For internal links — the genuinely full, direct control a site owner does have — write descriptive, honest, natural anchor text that accurately reflects what the destination page is actually about, and vary the specific phrasing naturally across different individual links pointing to the same ultimate destination. That's realistically the meaningful, actionable lever available, since external anchor text on inbound links is, by its basic nature, controlled by the linking site rather than the one receiving the link.