Anchor Text

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Anchor Text

The visible text used in a hyperlink is called "anchor text". For instance, "Polar heart rate monitors" is the anchor text in the following statement:

"Get all your <a href="http://www.polar-usa.us/">Polar heart rate monitors</a> here." It's used to highlight the underlying link.

Search programs use this text to enhance the relevance of the link in a related search request. The relevancy of the link to your overall website increases its weight, or value, with the search engine.

The page targeted by the link is enhanced, not the page the link is on. The anchor text will only help the current page if any keywords appear in it, as in our example above.

Anchor text works best when used within the context of the web page. It's important to make sure the links actually say something, as in our example above. That's much better than using, "Get all your Polar heart rate monitors <a href="http://www.polar-usa.us/">here</a>."

Don't try to come up with snappy ideas of using anchor text. Search programs compare the relevancy of your content to the links that are in it. They need to make sense for both the search program and your visitors. There's not much point in having a website at the top of the search program if you don't have anything for your visitors when they get there and they have no reason to return. Actually, that type of website won't last long at the top of the search programs, if it ever makes it there in the first place.

Anchor text can be very important. Your search rankings can be increased even if the anchor text used by another page does not appear on your page. Doing a Google search for "miserable failure" will list three web pages at the top (not counting the paid ad) that don't have those words anywhere on their page. In this case, it's known as Google bombing.