Anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable wording of a link. Google uses it as a core relevance signal, and heavy keyword anchors are also the classic sign of link spam. No safe ratio of anchor types has a primary source.
In short
- Anchors are one of three core relevance signals in Google, alongside page body text and user clicks, according to an exhibit from the US antitrust case reported in May 2025.
- Google publishes no safe ratio of anchor types, so every percentage you see quoted is an industry rule of thumb.
- Ahrefs' anchor text study of 384,614 pages found only a weak positive correlation between exact-match anchor share and rankings, and most top pages had a low share.
- Google's spam policies name articles, guest posts and press releases with optimised anchor text as link spam.
- The working method is to compare your anchor mix with the pages that already rank for the same term, and to keep keyword anchors mainly for your own internal links.
Anchor text is the clickable wording of a link. In the sentence “read our guide to tyre pressure”, the words you can click are the anchor. Search engines read those words as a description of the page the link points to.
That makes anchors one of the most useful parts of a link and the easiest part to overdo. This lesson covers the types, what is known about how Google treats them, and the limits of that knowledge.
Types of anchor text
Take a fictional shop called Northwind Cycles with a page that targets “road bike tyres”.
| Type | Example anchor | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Branded | Northwind Cycles | The most common type in natural profiles |
| Naked URL | northwindcycles.example | The address itself as the link |
| Generic | click here, this site | Says nothing about the target |
| Exact match | road bike tyres | Identical to the target keyword |
| Partial match | guide to choosing tyres for a road bike | Contains the keyword inside a longer phrase |
| Brand plus keyword | Northwind Cycles road tyres | A mix of the two |
| Page title | Road bike tyres: sizes and pressures explained | Common when writers cite an article |
| Image | (the image’s alt text) | Alt text stands in for the anchor |
Natural profiles are dominated by brand, URL and title anchors. Homepages attract mostly branded anchors. Deep informational pages attract more topical and title anchors, because writers tend to cite an article by what it says.
What is known about how Google uses anchors
Anchors are a core relevance signal. An exhibit from the US antitrust case against Google, reported in May 2025, names three signals that make up topical relevance: anchors, body and clicks. This is the firmest evidence available, because it comes from a Google engineer under legal process.
The surrounding words count too. The Google documentation leaked in 2024 includes fields that store the text to the left and right of a link, and the font size of the anchor. The leak lists data fields without weights, so it shows what Google stores, not how much it matters.
Mismatches can be demoted. The same leak lists a demotion for anchors that do not match their target. Its description is minimal. Analysts read it as a check on whether the anchor fits the page it points to.
Google measures spikes of spammy anchors. The leaked anchor fields include counts of spam-phrase anchors, the period over which they appeared and how many were demoted. Analysts read this as evidence that Google looks at the share and the rate of commercial anchors, and that anchors inside a sudden spike can be discounted. The exact field names come from analyses of the leak, and whether they are in live use is not confirmed.
Optimised anchors in distributed content are link spam. Google’s spam policies, last updated in August 2026, list “articles, guest posts or press releases with optimised anchor text distributed on other sites” among their examples. Forum comments with optimised links are on the same list.
What the data says about exact-match anchors
Ahrefs studied the anchors of 384,614 pages across 19,840 keywords. The share of exact-match anchors showed only a weak positive correlation with ranking position. Most top-ranking pages had a low share of exact-match anchors. Partial-match and phrase-match anchors behaved in a similar way.
So keyword anchors are not a strong lever on their own, and the pages that win are not winning through anchor stuffing.
The honest caveat: no safe ratio exists
You will see anchor text ratios quoted with confidence: so much branded, so much exact match. None of them has a primary source. Google publishes no safe ratio. The Ahrefs study cites an industry convention of keeping exact match to roughly 1% to 5%, and describes it as a convention.
Three reasons to distrust any universal figure:
- What looks natural differs by page type. A homepage and a guide attract different anchors.
- It differs by market. In some markets every ranking site has aggressive anchors, and in others almost none do.
- Google appears to look at patterns over time, such as spikes, and not only at a static percentage.
Our confidence in any numeric ratio is low, and we do not publish one. See the methodology for how we treat claims like this.
A working method
- Benchmark the pages that rank. Take the top five results for your target term and look at the anchors pointing to the equivalent page on each site. Use the same page type: homepage against homepage, guide against guide.
- Note the range, not an average. You are looking for what is normal in that market, and for how far the most aggressive ranking page goes.
- Stay inside the range. If no ranking page has more than a handful of exact-match anchors, a profile full of them will stand out.
- Let most anchors happen. When a journalist or blogger links to you unprompted, they choose the words. That variety is what a natural profile looks like.
- Use your own site for keyword anchors. Internal links are where exact-match anchors carry far less risk, and you control every one.
Where you control the anchor, and where you should not
You control anchors in internal links, in your own author bio on a guest article and in listings you fill in yourself. You can also suggest one when you buy a placement.
That last case is where the risk concentrates. A paid article on a weak site with one exact-match commercial anchor is the pattern named in Google’s spam policy. If you buy placements, vary the wording, favour brand and descriptive anchors, and make the sentence read as though an editor wrote it.
Anchors in another language need the same care. A keyword anchor in one language on a site written in another stands out to a reader, and it is reasonable to assume it stands out to a search engine.
What usually happens when anchors go wrong
Google’s Penguin system, launched in 2012 and part of the core algorithm since 2016, is the one built around manipulative links and anchors. The leak suggests its logic drops anchors instead of punishing the whole page. In practice that means over-optimised anchors are more often ignored than penalised. A profile dominated by them can still draw a manual action. Google link penalties and recovery covers what to do then.
Where to go next
Read how search engines evaluate links for the other features of a link, and guest posting and niche edits for the tactics where you are most likely to be asked which anchor you want.
Common questions
What is anchor text?
It is the visible, clickable wording of a link. For an image link, the image's alt text does the same job.
What is a safe anchor text ratio?
Nobody outside Google knows, and Google has never published one. The common advice to keep exact-match anchors to roughly 1% to 5% is an industry convention, not a rule from a primary source.
Is exact-match anchor text bad?
Not in itself. A few exact-match anchors are normal. A profile where many links from weak sites use the same commercial phrase is the pattern Google's Penguin system was built to catch.
Which anchor should I ask for when I earn a link?
In most cases, let the writer choose. When you do have a say, your brand name or a plain description of the page reads naturally and carries the least risk.