What is Anchor Text?

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. Google reads anchor text as one of the strongest signals of what the destination page is about.

"Click here" anchor text is wasted opportunity — it tells Google nothing about the destination. Descriptive anchor text like "local SEO playbook" or "how much a website costs" passes ranking signal to the linked page.

That said, over-optimizing anchor text — using the exact same keyword anchor for every link to a page — is a spam signal. Vary anchor text naturally: sometimes the page's title, sometimes a description of what's on it, sometimes a partial match. The pattern Google rewards is the pattern that real humans would write.