Anchor texts: the distribution that protects
Too many optimized anchors attract penalties, too few dilute the signal. The reference ratios per profile.
In short:
- Brand anchors should represent half of a healthy profile.
- Exact-match anchors are reserved for pillar pages, sparingly.
- An anchor audit happens before every campaign, never after.
The anchor is the clickable text of a link, and its dosage makes the difference between a natural profile and a suspicious one.
The main anchor families
- Brand: the site or company name
- Naked URL: the raw address
- Generic: click here, learn more
- Exact or partial match: the target keyword
The reference ratios
A balanced profile sits around 50% brand, 20% naked URLs and generics, 30% broader semantics of which only a fraction is exact match.
“The perfect anchor is the one an editor would have written without us.” Sophie Marchand
Arbitrate with the budget
Anchor distribution should be planned together with the power versus dilution trade-off: both decisions go hand in hand.