| As you learn about promoting websites you're sure to | | | | assumption about the link. |
| hear people talking about getting relevant anchor text | | | | Because search engines usually look at only the |
| in links that point to your website, but what exactly is | | | | anchor, and maybe a few words either side of the link, |
| anchor text, and why does it matter? | | | | any link that points to our website is going to be |
| Links are formed using HTML, the computer language | | | | identified by search engines using the anchor text. So, |
| universally used to create websites, and if you view | | | | lets say I own a website about racing cars, I would |
| the source of any pages you will see literally hundreds | | | | want people who link to me to use text that had |
| of lines of code with < and > characters separating | | | | something to do with racing cars, and not text that is |
| them. | | | | irrelevant such as 'that cool site over there'. |
| A typical link will contains two sections, the first has the | | | | If I get enough links to my website with relevant anchor |
| URL, and the second a slash with an a "/a" both | | | | text, then the search engines will give me better |
| surrounded by < and > arrows, but when you see it in | | | | rankings for the terms I most talk about, but if too |
| the webpage you will only see the text 'this is a link' | | | | many people link to me with irrelevant anchor text I'll |
| and it will have an underline or be a different color to | | | | probably struggle to get a good ranking. Many website |
| indicate you can click it. The text you see on the page | | | | owners choose domain names and website names |
| is called the anchor text. | | | | that don't really define their topic, so run the risk of |
| Part of the reason good anchor text is so important is | | | | getting a lot of irrelevant links. |
| that search engines are just computers, they may be | | | | Knowing how people create links, and knowing what |
| smart, but they determine what the link is all about | | | | keywords or topics you want to rank for is the best |
| from the anchor, whereas you and I might read the | | | | way to ensure that you help your cause in the search |
| surrounding paragraph and be able to make an | | | | engines rather than hinder your cause. |