Anchor Text
Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a link - that is, the words that appear on a web page underlined in blue or highlighted in color and that point to another page. It tells people and machines what to expect behind the click. Search engines and AI systems use the anchor text as a hint about what the target page is about.
Why anchor text matters
Anchor text is one of the oldest ranking hints on the web. When many pages link to the same shop with the text "cheap winter tires", a search engine understands: this page is about cheap winter tires. The text acts like a recommendation from outside. It also helps within your own website: internal links with clear anchor texts guide visitors and crawlers purposefully to important content. For AI systems that scour the web, the anchor text is an additional signal indicating which page is the right source for which topic. Good anchor text describes the target honestly and in natural language, instead of just saying "click here". That way readability and findability both benefit at once.
How anchor text works
Technically, the anchor text sits between the link tags in the HTML code: the text you write between the opening and closing link element becomes the anchor text. Crawlers read out this text and assign it to the target page. Several types are distinguished: the exact search term ("vacation apartment Allgaeu"), the brand ("Huber Bakery"), a whole part of a sentence or generic formulas like "learn more". A healthy mix feels natural. If you always link with the same exact search term, this looks manipulated to search engines. AI models and search engines evaluate the anchor text together with the surrounding text, i.e. the sentences around the link. This context reinforces or qualifies the signal that the anchor text sends on its own.
Common mistakes
The classic mistake is the meaningless anchor text: "click here", "read on" or a bare internet address. Such texts help neither readers nor machines understand what lies behind the link. They are also a problem for people using screen readers, because a read-out list of links then consists only of "here, here, here". The second mistake is overdoing it: if you cram the exact same keyword into every link, the signal tips from helpful to spammy and can be penalized. The third mistake is a contradiction between anchor text and target page. If the text promises "prices", the target page should also show prices, otherwise trust suffers. Write anchor texts so that someone can guess where the link leads even without the rest of the sentence.
Relevance to AI recommendations
AI assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google overviews rely on the open web when gathering knowledge. Anchor texts are one building block with which these systems recognize relationships between pages and topics. When reputable pages link to your brand with descriptive, thematically fitting anchor texts, this strengthens the connection between your name and your field. For generative search, in which the AI formulates answers itself and names sources, a clear network of anchor texts increases the chance of being recognized and cited as a fitting source. Anchor text does not replace good content, but it helps AI systems match your content to the right question. So use it deliberately and descriptively rather than arbitrarily.
Example
Imagine an online magazine article about bike maintenance. Instead of writing "You'll find the best chain here" and linking the word "here", the editorial team writes: "This guide explains how to oil your bike chain properly" and links the text fragment "oil your bike chain properly". A reader knows immediately what to expect. A search engine assigns the target page to the topic of chain care. And an AI assistant that later answers a question about bike maintenance more easily finds the fitting source via this descriptive anchor text.
Common questions
What makes a good anchor text?
A good anchor text describes in a few natural words what is on the target page. It is concrete enough that you can guess the target even without the surrounding sentence, and it avoids empty formulas like "click here".
How many exact keyword anchor texts are allowed?
There is no fixed number, but variety is decisive. Mix brand, descriptive sentences and generic texts. If almost all links use the exact same keyword, this looks manipulated and can be devalued by search engines.