Field Guide Term:
Anchor Text

Anchor text is the text on a website that is linked to another page.  It is usually highlighted as a link via coloring, underlining, or more. The code looks something like this:

<a href="http://www.example.com">Example Anchor Text</a>

Anchor text can play an important role in SEO.  Google uses this text as a clue to understand the page it is linked to.  If the term used for the anchor text relates to the page it is linked to then that can help the destination pages.

SEO-friendly anchor text is succinct and relevant to the target page (i.e., the page it’s linking to).

Word to the wise: Don’t stuff a page with anchor texts. If the links are forced and don’t relate to the destination page then Google will penalize the linking and target pages.