Every link on a page has two parts: a URL that tells a browser where to go, and a short piece of visible text that tells a reader why to go there. That visible text is what SEO guides mean when they define anchor text, and Google's own documentation spells out exactly how it expects that text to work, from the HTML that makes a link crawlable to the words you choose to put inside it.
Anchor text is the visible, clickable words in a hyperlink, the part a reader sees and clicks rather than the URL behind it. That's the short way to define anchor text: Google reads it to understand what the linked page is about, so descriptive text helps both readers and search engines make sense of a link before they follow it.
How to Define Anchor Text in HTML
Google only crawls links built as a proper <a> element with an href attribute, according to its link best practices. A styled <span>, or a link built from a JavaScript click handler with no real href, may not get parsed as a link at all. Anchor text is whatever sits inside that <a> tag: in <a href=\"https://example.com/ghost-peppers\">ghost peppers</a>, the anchor text is "ghost peppers."
If the <a> element has no visible text, Google falls back to the title attribute as anchor text. For an image used as a link, Google uses the image's alt attribute instead, so a product photo linking to a cart page needs descriptive alt text for that link to carry any anchor text at all.
Google has drawn on anchor text to understand linked pages for a long time. A 2007 Search Central post, "More insight into anchor text", describes how the old Webmaster Tools expanded its anchor text report to 200 phrases, including variations in capitalization and punctuation, and expanded the list of common individual words to 100 each for anchor text and for the site's own content.
Examples
Google's documentation gives direct examples of anchor text to avoid. "Click here," "read more," and linking the bare word "website" are called out as too generic, because they tell a reader to click without saying what's on the other side. Google's Lighthouse tool checks for the same pattern in its descriptive link text audit, flagging "click here," "click this," "go," "here," "this," "start," "right here," "more," and "learn more" as generic link text.
A better version names the destination. Instead of linking the word "website," Google's example links the phrase "list of cheese types" to a page that lists cheese types. Anchor text should also stay reasonably concise: Google's own bad example links an entire sentence as one anchor, while the better version links just the first few words and leaves the rest of the sentence outside the link.
Google also warns against chaining several links next to each other with no context between them, such as linking the words "so," "many," "times," "this," and "year" each separately in one sentence. That makes individual links hard to tell apart and strips out the surrounding text that would otherwise explain what each one leads to.
Anchor text can also carry a rel attribute that tells Google your relationship to the linked page, under Google's guidance on qualifying outbound links:
<a rel=\"sponsored\" href=\"https://example.com/page\">paid placement</a>
<a rel=\"ugc\" href=\"https://example.com/page\">user comment</a>
<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://example.com/page\">untrusted source</a>
sponsored marks paid or advertising links. ugc marks user-generated content such as comments or forum posts. nofollow applies when neither of those fits and you'd rather Google not associate your site with the linked page, or not crawl it from your link. These values combine, separated by spaces or commas, as in rel=\"ugc nofollow\".
When to Use Descriptive Anchor Text (and When to Hold Back)
Use descriptive anchor text whenever you link to another page, internal or external. Google's documentation says every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on the site, and that anchor text on internal links helps both readers and Google understand how pages relate to each other. External links work the same way: Google's own example of citing a source links the phrase "Cheese in Surround Sound—a culinary art experiment," naming the actual study rather than using a generic word like "source," which gives a reader context and can help establish trust.
Hold back on keyword-stuffed anchor text. Cramming every related term into a single link's anchor text falls under keyword stuffing, which Google's spam policies treat as a violation. Google's own test is simple: ask whether a reader needs those exact words to understand where the link goes, and if the anchor text feels forced, it's too much.
Hold back on nofollow as a default, too. Google recommends it only when you don't trust the page you're linking to, when a link is paid, or when it's user-generated content such as a forum post or comment, and offers sponsored and ugc as the more specific tags for those last two cases. Ordinary links you're comfortable with don't need a rel attribute at all.
If you're checking anchor text across a large site by hand, that's slow going. SEOAgent's site audit crawls a whole site in one pass and flags broken internal links and orphan pages, the same places where missing or generic anchor text usually turns up first.
What's new (as of 25 October 2026)
Google's pages on link best practices and on qualifying outbound links both carry a last-updated date of 2025-12-10, shown in the footer of each page. Both still rest on the same core rules covered above: a link needs a crawlable <a href>, its anchor text should be descriptive and reasonably concise, and sponsored, ugc, and nofollow remain the three ways to qualify an outbound link. The 2007 Search Central post on anchor text is a far older artifact, from when Webmaster Tools displayed an anchor phrase report directly inside the product.
Once your own anchor text is in order, the next question is usually which external links and mentions are worth having at all, which Off-page SEO: what counts and what Google calls spam covers in full.
Key takeaways
- Anchor text is the visible, clickable text inside an
<a>element; Google falls back to thetitleattribute or, for images, thealtattribute when that text is missing. - Google can only crawl links built as a real
<a href=\"...\">element, so a styled span or a JavaScript-only click handler may not be read as a link. - Good anchor text is descriptive and reasonably concise; Google and its Lighthouse tool both flag generic phrases like "click here" and "learn more."
- The
relattribute valuessponsored,ugc, andnofollowtell Google your relationship to an outbound link, and can be combined on one link. - Stuffing anchor text with keywords instead of natural phrasing falls under Google's spam policies.
FAQ
What is the difference between anchor text and a hyperlink?
A hyperlink is the whole clickable element: the <a> tag, its href destination, and the visible words together. Anchor text is just the visible part of that hyperlink, the words a reader actually sees and clicks, while the href attribute is the separate piece that tells a browser, and Google, which URL the link leads to. Put simply, to define anchor text is to name those visible words, not the link's destination.
Does anchor text affect SEO rankings?
Google says it uses anchor text to understand what a linked page is about, which makes anchor text one of the signals Google draws on when working out a page's relevance. Descriptive, natural anchor text helps Google and readers understand a link before they follow it, while generic text like "click here" or keyword-stuffed phrases work against that goal and can run into Google's spam policies on keyword stuffing.
Should every link use nofollow?
No. Google's guidance says to use nofollow only when you don't trust the page you're linking to, when a link is paid, or when it's user-generated content such as a forum post or comment, and it offers sponsored and ugc as more specific tags for those last two cases. Regular links you're comfortable with don't need a rel attribute at all.
What happens if a link has no visible text?
If an <a> element is empty, Google falls back to the title attribute as anchor text, and for an image used as a link, Google uses the image's alt attribute instead. A link with no href, or built from something other than a real <a> element, may not be crawled as a link by Google in the first place.