The Anchor Text Optimization SEO Tutorial article was rewritten in January 2010 to reflect any changes in Google (not a great deal has changed regarding anchor text).
Anchor text is the visible text of a hyperlink, for example the text link below links to our home page (http://www.seo-gold.com/) with the anchor text SEO Gold-
The HTML code for which is-
<a href=”http://www.seo-gold.com/”>SEO Gold</a>
The red text SEO Gold is the anchor text for this hyperlink (or text link as it is sometimes called).
Anchor Text Importance in Search Engine Optimization
Google (and to a lesser degree other search engines) heavily weight it’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) towards the anchor text of links to a page. This can be demonstrated by looking at extreme examples where a pages high ranking can ONLY be attributed to anchor text and no other SEO factors. Googlebombs are probably the easiest examples to find and understand how anchor text effects SERPs.
The miserable failure Googlebomb of late 2003 aimed at the biography page of George W Bush (www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html) clearly shows the power of anchor text. The US Presidents biography page which fell victim to the Miserable Failure Googlebomb (and a few other Googlebombs) does not include the words Miserable or Failure anywhere within the code, yet two years on is still at number 1 for the Miserable Failure SERP at Google, Yahoo and other search engines.
Its consistent search engine placement at number one for this phrase can only be attributed to the anchor text of links to the page (lots of bloggers linking using the anchor text Miserable Failure).
Googlebombs take advantage of the combined effectiveness of anchor text from thousands of links.
A similar phenomenon is occurring with the Computer and Computers SERPs in Google. As of January 2005 a search in Google for the word Computer ranks www.dell.com as a top 10 result and a search for Computers ranks www.compaq.com as a top 10 result. Looking at the code of these two pages reveal neither use the word Computer or Computers respectively (at least not in a format Google understands).
Update: Although the principal that anchor text is very important to Google is still as true today (January 2010) as it was when this SEO tutorial was written, Google has made changes to it’s search algorithm to prevent Googlebombs.
How Effective is Anchor Text?
Since 371 million pages are reported for the Computer SERP and 150 million pages for the Computers SERP and these SERPs are highly commercial and competitive (fierce competition) the reason these two site rank highly for those SERPs is due to the power of anchor text. With hundreds of thousands of pages linking to these two home pages with many using the anchor text Computer/Computers it’s enough to rank highly with no on page optimization!! Imagine where they would be with a little on site optimization!
We have found through both experimentation and real sites that anchor text is almost always the deciding factor for very hard SERPs. A site can do OK with good on site optimization, but poor use of anchor text/few links. A site can do quite well with good use of anchor text/links, but poor on site optimization. When you have a highly optimized site (lots of keyword rich content) and good use of anchor text from reasonable PageRank (PR) pages there tends to be very good SERPs.
How to use Anchor Text Effectively?
Anchor text usage should reflect the content (ideally the main SERP) the link is linking to and ideally help the page it is linked from as well (the latter isn’t always possible). This means if you can link highly related pages (related SERPs) together they will tend to do much better in their respective SERPs. Most pages on the SEO Gold site would benefit from the addition of the word SEO and so adding a link from every page of the site using anchor text “SEO Other Keyword(s)” is a good idea.
Every page of the SEO Gold site links to the SEO Tutorial index page via the main menu on the right using anchor text SEO Tutorial for example.
The Professional SEO Consultant Services page main SERP is clearly Professional SEO Consultant Services. By adding the SEO Tutorial page link on the left menu we’ve given the SEO tutorial page a boost from the anchor text of the link to it AND as importantly added the word SEO to the Professional SEO Consultant Services page as well. We’ve found anchor text gives the page it is on a larger boost than the same text as just body text. So if you can add a related link (like the SEO Tutorial link) from a related page (like the SEO Services page) you should.
There are a lot of SERPs related to the SEO Tutorial SERP etc…, for example SEO Company, SEO Firm, SEO Consultant … so more often we can add links from pages of this site with the anchor text SEO Tutorial etc… more likely we are to pick up these SERPs. The same is true for the anchor text of other links using the word SEO (i.e. Professional SEO Consultant Services). You will notice the word Optimization is used a lot as anchor text as well for the same reason.
Anchor Text and the Real World
The anchor text can’t always be perfect since there are other considerations including space available, making links descriptive etc… The left menu of the SEO Gold site used to have enough space for 24 characters before it wraps to the next line (changed the design, no longer an issue). Since it looks less professional having wrapped links on the main menu with that design we limited our anchor text to no more than 24 characters on the menu.
Along the top menu (of the old design) we had a Home Page link, the anchor text Home is very poor text to use for a link since it confers no benefit to the page (we don’t want to rank high for any searches related to the word Home), but we want our visitors to easily navigate the site and a Home link is the easiest way to get back to the home page. A compromise is to use anchor text SEO Gold Home. The new design works better and we have a link in the top header with anchor text “Professional Search Engine Optimization Services”.
Alt Attribute Text of Image Links
The alt text of image links is the equivalent to the anchor text of text links in SEO terms. This means when a link to a page is part of an image you should add relevant alt text to the alt attribute (looks like this alt=”keywords here”). Occasionally you’ll find a situation where you just can’t use relevant keywords as anchor text, when this happens image links can solve the problem.
For example we could use a Home image link in place of the SEO Gold Home text link on the top menu below (old design) the logo with an alt attribute with keyword rich text. However, in this case we have at least two other links per page to the home page using keyword rich anchor text (the keyword rich copyright link at the bottom) and an alt attribute (the top banner image that says SEO Gold, Search engine Optimization Services is also a image link to the home page with a keyword rich alt attribute, hover over it to see). So two out of three links using highly keyword rich text should be more than enough.
If you have a menu like situation where it’s not possible to use good keyword rich anchor text consider using an image link with keyword rich alt text. Take a screen shot of a page showing the menu you’d like better anchor text for. In an image editing program like Paintshop Pro cut out each word associate with the menu, this will give you a bunch of small images that when viewed look like text, there’s an example below that we used on an SEO clients site recently-
Hover over the word Home above and you’ll see the keyword rich alt attribute in some browsers. The above is just an example, don’t keyword stuff your alt attributes with keywords, especially in a situation like this (a menu link).
The code for this image link is-
<a href=”"><img src=”alt-text.gif” width=”80″ height=”18″ border=”0″ alt=”Alt Text, looks much better than using a keyword rich text link for a home link”></a>
As a side note until 2005 the alt text of non linked images (so a standard image on a web page that doesn’t link to anything) was ignored by Google, didn’t matter what you put in your non linked alt text for Google rankings. However, in 2005 Google unexpectedly started to use all alt text as part of the ranking algorithm. So you should take this into account when creating images, give them relevant alt text.
Alt Attribute Text Test of Non-Linked Images
A quick test to determine if Google is still counting the alt text as part of the SERPs do this search in Google (the text below is NOT on this page as text, the text below is an image with alt text only)-
With the speech marks (this is an exact search). As long as Google uses alt text you should find this page listed since we’ve added the above piece of unique text to a non linked images alt attribute above.
Google Search for the above test
Update: January 2010, this SEO test is still valid, have added the words VALID TEST to the alt text, so when you do the above Google search there’s a good chance the words VALID TEST will be right after the alt text within the Google description for this page (as long as this page shows in Google, alt text of an image link is counted as a ranking factor by Google).
Title Attribute Text Test of Text Links
This is what a title attribute within a text link looks like at code level:
<a href=”http://www.seo-gold.com/” title=”This Is Text Within a Title Attribute”>SEO Gold</a>
You can also test the title attribute as well, the title attribute is the code title=”keywords” sometimes used with text links. Currently Google ignores the contents of this attribute, so no SEO reason to use them with text links.
If this ever changes a search for “Contact SEO Gold for a Detailed Search Engine Optimization Quote” with the speech marks will find multiple pages of this site, since the SEO Consultant link on the right menu (near the top) includes a title attribute using this exact text. If only this page (the one you are reading now) is listed when performing a search you can be confident Google still ignores the title attribute since we’ve used that exact text above within the normal content for this page ONLY (so there should be just one listing for this site: Google indexed this page under different URLs, but it’s still only this page listed from this domain).
Google Search for the above test
Update January 2010: From the comments I see a few readers are a little confused about this title attribute test. On the menu of this site is a text link that points to http://www.seo-gold.com/seo-consultant with a title attribute (which is basically a tool tip, in some browsers hovering over the link shows the text). This link is on every single page of the site, if Google ever counts the keywords within the title attribute we should see loads of pages from this site listed for this search: currently only this page (under 3 URLs) is indexed from this site (got a canonical issue caused by a WordPress theme issue which is why this page is indexed 3 times).
Return to the Free SEO Tutorial
Website - WordPress SEO
28 responses to SEO Tutorial – Anchor Text Optimization
Weight Comparison - Anchor Text vs. Image Alt Text
I’ve read in a few places that anchor text is weighted more than an image alt text. Does anyone have current testing that clearly shows this? Logically IMO it makes sense as you could have an image of grapes, but your image alt text says bananas. The search engines would have a tough time programmatically knowing. So I’d imagine they can’t fully trust image alt.. Thoughts?
Title Tag/Alt Tag
Hello
When I read this article, it seems like you want that one shud not use Title/Alt tag. Is it?
Thanks
Anchor text
So if I write an article and someone asks for anchor text, they actually want a word eg Home insurance highlighted/linked, that is the anchor text? The link will then be the long piece of html that they give me?
Great article – great test – very helpful.
Question: Does Google weigh the value of anchor text links differently than alt-attribute text links? Or in other words, is it better to link from inline text than from images with alt-text?
Thanks!
Excellent Proof of Concept
Found this while researching and it clearly makes the case for ALT and TITLE attributes. I’m sharing this page with our SEO students.
Anyway, it should be ignored by Google etc… since alt attribute text is only meant to be associated with images.
Anchor text/text link
As a new entry in SEO, I was searching SEO and it’s associated issue like anchor text, and after found SEO Gold I got it clearly and really it’s helpful. This site has brought different anchor text affiliated issue, really very helpful. I loved it.
Mamun
Meta
Great article… definitely helpful for figuring out anchor text optimization. My only issue, which I’ve come across a lot with SEO articles, is the use of the page’s own titles exclusively for examples. This has a meta effect where SEO noobs like me get confused. E.g.:
“Quick SEO Tip – note above how we have linked out important phrases like Professional SEO Consultant Services and SEO Tutorial to their respective pages including a link to this page – anchor text.” (I understand this, but I have to think very hard).
For Beginners guides and tutorials I think it’s beneficial to use totally non-SEO related examples.
Thanks again!
Tyler G.
SEO Tutorial – Anchor Text Optimization
Pardon, I meant “the *site’s own titles,” not ‘page’s.”
Tyler G.
good
hi
i read your article, but i m little bit confused that how many anchor text we will apply on one page. also pls suggest me that how it is useful to get high SERP.
Thanks in advance.
Does an anchor test on a page of a website linking back to a different page on the same website, help?
Yes
Excellent work
really started looking into SEO for a couple of months now and your information is spot on – Thanks
I’m curious about the preferred or optimized ‘length’ for anchor text. I recall there was some discussion that Google discounts anything beyond three words used in anchor text links, but this seems somewhat limiting for a search engine to produce accurate results after a time. Any thoughts?
Hi, I’ve read your article and I find it vety interesting.
I found strange that Google use image.alt attribute as keyword for link.
I know that Alt attribute is usefull to provide an alternative text for images when it’s not possibile to show pictures or for accessibility purpose, not SEO one. For this reason I find strange the use of alt attribute on a image to bypass template space problem. What do you think about this?
Another question. My website contains video, and I’ve one page for every video. In every page there is an Abuse button that allow to user to gimme a feedback about strange content, this button link a second page with a form. I’ve seen by Google webmaster tool that Google give to the keword “abuse” great relevance, but is not the content of my website.
How can I tell to Google this is a “service link” not a content one? (noref?)
Thank you
Simone
SEO Tutorial – Anchor Text Optimization
How many characters does Google index in the alt text for images and links?
Do we add alt text delimiting phrases with commas?
Wonderful info.
Thank you!
Just to clarify for your readers the purpose of the alt and title attributes:
alt is short for ‘alternate text’. It should be used to give a brief description of the image it is attached to. If you have a linked image and the image is just text that reads ‘my homepage’, the alt text should be ‘my homepage’. This attribute is an *accessibility* feature for people who use screen reader software or have images off for whatever reason.
This is where the title attribute comes in. If you have anchor (or image link alt) text which does not clearly indicate what you are linking to, or you wish to elaborate on your actual anchor text, you use a title attribute to expand.
e.g.
I saw a <a href=”…” title=”Watch Madonna’s new video on YouTube”>great new music video</a> on tv today.
It’s a shame that Google doesn’t index title text, because that is the ideal place for the kind of SEO optimisation you discuss.
In the meantime, it would be ok to gently elaborate inside alt text. You do say you shouldn’t stuff alt with keywords, but I think your article needs to stress that this is a functioning attribute that is valuable to lots of web users.
It is NOT ok to load it with SEO keywords in the navigation (or *anywhere else*) to the point where the original content of the image is obscured to people who can’t see the actual image. It’s not just Google that reads alt text, it’s people.
SEO Tutorial – Anchor Text Optimization
understood how anchor text affects the serps of your website by reading this,
thanks
Really great site thank you.
What about using an alt=”" tag on anchor text?
From your example (I added an alt tag to your Anchor Text):
……links to our home page (http://www.seo-gold.com/) with the anchor text SEO Gold-
SEO Gold
The HTML code for which is-
<a href=”http://www.seo-gold.com/” alt=”SEO Gold”>SEO Gold</a>
Excuse me if this is stupid, still learning. Have to say though I am smarter after reading your articles.
Cheers
Rick
SEO Tutorial – Anchor Text Optimization
I fixed the HTML issues created by your comment, WordPress treats what you posted as link, you have to change the < to the code for that charachter.
Anyway, it should be ignored by Google etc… since alt attribute text is only meant to be associated with images.
I’ve added a quick test to this page, I’ve added unique text into a new alt attribute of a text link (so not associated with an image). The text link is close to the top of the page with anchor text “Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)”.
As long as no one links to this page with the unique text I added to the alt attribute it will remain a valid test (I’ll setup a secret one somewhere as well). Obviously I can’t write the made up word here as it will invalidate the test (view source to see it).
Give it a little time for the page to be reindexed (check the cache for the date) and if that made up word doesn’t show up as a search result for this page it confirms Google ignores it.
If it does count alt text within a text link I’d be very careful using it as Google will treat it as hidden text as it does not show up as a tool tip** on text links.
** The title attribute (title=”keywords”) added to text links is for tool tips and the content is ignored by Google. I expect Google has already taken this into account, but you never know for sure until you test it
David
SEO Tutorial – Anchor Text Optimization
I add that alt attribute is not allowed in HTML A tag
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/links.html#h-12.2
You generate not valid HTML code
My two cent
Simone
Hello SEO-Gold,
I have a question related to PR and anchor text.
Lets say I own website dedicated to Corvettes, and a friend linked from his site with an anchor text “Johnathan’s site” or “Johnathan Mayer’s cars”, without Corvettes word.
Friend’s website PR that he left my link is really high.
My question: does this will give any ranking value for my site? Let’s say that my onpage seo is optimized for Corvettes.
Is related anchor text from high PR sites is so critical important? I mean if a link don’t have a word Corvettes that mean I won’t get any seo value by ranking for Corvettes word (even if it’s optimized for)?
Johny.
SEO Tutorial – Anchor Text Optimization
PR and anchor text are not linked as such, you can have a website or page with no related links with rubbish anchor text do really well in the SERPs because of the sites/page overall PR: basically get a site enough links from any source (avoiding penalties) and it will rank well after the links mature (Google sandbox).
If you got a link from Google’s home page (PR10) you’d get a CRAP load of link benefit, this would flow through your site and boost all your on page SEO. there was an example of a blogger who got a great link from Google and he took loads of SERPs completely unrelated to the anchor text within the link!
Add to this that internal links with good anchor text are treated no different to incoming links with good anchor text, if most of your internal links to your Corvettes page used the keyword Corvettes as anchor text they would boost that page for that SERP. Most of my rankings are based on this type of SEO, internal links are so undervalued in the SEO industry.
That being said the ideal situation is all your incoming links and internal links have great anchor text, because it does add to the sites overall rankings. You’d get more from a link with good anchor text (you get the link benefit boost AND the anchor text benefit boost) than one with poor anchor text (just get the link benefit boost).
The link benefit boost is far more important than the anchor text boost from a link. I’d take one link from the home page of Google with anchor text “Click Here” over 1,000 links from PR5 home pages with great anchor text from related sites. Imagine what you could do with all that link benefit from a Google home page link (drool
).
David
SEO Tutorial – Anchor Text Optimization
Thank you very much David, very detailed answer and it’s exactly what I wanted to hear:)
Thanks for the answer.
John.
I am unsure of the alt text google results. Is Google still counting the alt text as part of the SERPs now in November 2009?
I am still unsure if Google considered the ‘Title’ attribute. And what is the different between the ‘Title’ and ‘alt’ attribute? If I use the ‘Title’ attribute for a link, what do I put in it?
It seems that the searchlink under “Alt Attribute Text Test of Non-Linked Images” gives no results now, yet under “Title Attribute Text Test of Text Links” it does. Did Google change it around? From when was this page?
I changed the sites design and didn’t update the tests!
I’ve updated the tests now, so give it a few days and they’ll be valid again (unless Google’s changed
).
BTW there is supposed to be only one listing in the title attribute text search, this page uses that exact text remember.
David
Leave a reply to SEO Tutorial – Anchor Text Optimization