What makes good anchor text?

Text that describes the destination in natural language. Click here tells search engines nothing; digital marketing services in Bangkok tells them exactly what the target page covers. Vary the wording instead of repeating one exact phrase everywhere.

Can anchor text be over-optimised?

On external links, yes. A backlink profile where many links use the same commercial phrase looks manipulated and is a classic spam signal. Internal anchor text is far safer to optimise, though even there, mechanical repetition reads badly to users.

On-Page SEO

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the visible, clickable words of a hyperlink.

It helps search engines understand what the linked page is about, so a link reading "WordPress web design" passes more topical context than one reading "click here." Use descriptive anchors for internal links, and keep external anchors varied rather than repeating the same exact-match keyword, which can look manipulative. Natural, descriptive anchors serve both users and SEO.

Anchor text on internal links is a free signal most sites spend badly. Navigation and footer links repeat the same generic wording site-wide, which tells search engines very little, while in-content links written naturally carry real topical meaning. Auditing this is straightforward with a crawler that exports internal anchors: look for important pages whose incoming anchors are all navigation labels. On external links the concern reverses. A backlink profile where a large share of anchors are the same commercial phrase reads as coordinated, and that pattern is easier to detect than to explain away.

Example

Twelve posts link to the same audit service. Version one: every link reads "click here", so search engines learn only that a page exists. Version two: anchors read "technical SEO audit", "site health check", "crawl analysis", each describing the destination differently. The second version tells Google what the page is about from twelve angles without repeating one phrase.

Frequently asked questions

What makes good anchor text?: Text that describes the destination in natural language. Click here tells search engines nothing; digital marketing services in Bangkok tells them exactly what the target page covers. Vary the wording instead of repeating one exact phrase everywhere.
Can anchor text be over-optimised?: On external links, yes. A backlink profile where many links use the same commercial phrase looks manipulated and is a classic spam signal. Internal anchor text is far safer to optimise, though even there, mechanical repetition reads badly to users.

Related terms

Internal Link Backlink Link Attributes

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