Anchor Text

Anchor text is the visible, clickable wording of a link — the part a reader sees and decides whether to follow. In a sentence like "read our guide to sourdough," the anchor text is the phrase carrying the link, not the address behind it.

It matters because it describes the destination in advance. A link labelled "sourdough starter guide" tells a search engine, an AI assistant, and a human being what to expect on the other side. A link labelled "click here" tells all three of them nothing, and the reader who relies on a screen reader least of all.

Anchor text you control is the wording of links on your own pages — worth writing descriptively, always. Anchor text you do not control is what other sites choose when linking to you, and that variety is the point: natural linking produces a mixture of your business name, your page titles, plain URLs and ordinary phrases. Uniform, keyword-stuffed anchor text arriving from many sites at once is the oldest signature of purchased links, and one of the easiest for a search engine to recognise.