Anchor text

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The phrase "academic search engines" is the anchor text in the hyperlink that the cursor is pointing to. Anchor text.png
The phrase "academic search engines" is the anchor text in the hyperlink that the cursor is pointing to.

The anchor text, link label, or link text is the visible, clickable text in an HTML hyperlink. The term "anchor" was used in older versions of the HTML specification [1] for what is currently referred to as the "a element", or <a>. [2] The HTML specification does not have a specific term for anchor text, but refers to it as "text that the a element wraps around". In XML terms (since HTML is XML), the anchor text is the content of the element, provided that the content is text. [3]

Contents

Usually, web search engines analyze anchor text from hyperlinks on web pages. The words contained in the anchor text can determine the ranking that the page will receive from search engines. Other services apply the basic principles of anchor text analysis as well. For instance, academic search engines may use citation context to classify academic articles, [4] and anchor text from documents linked in mind maps may be used too. [5]

Overview

Anchor text usually gives the user relevant descriptive or contextual information about the content of the link's destination. The anchor text may or may not be related to the actual text of the URL of the link. For example, a hyperlink to the English-language Wikipedia's homepage might take this form:

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikipedia</a>

"Wikipedia" is the anchor text in this example. The URL it points to is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. The entire hyperlink appears on a web page as Wikipedia.

Search engine algorithms

Anchor text is weighted (ranked) highly in search engine algorithms, because the linked text is usually relevant to the landing page. The objective of search engines is to provide highly relevant search results; this is where anchor text helps, as the tendency was, more often than not, to hyperlink words relevant to the landing page. Anchor text can also serve the purpose of directing the user to internal pages on the site, which can also help to rank the website higher in the search rankings. [6]

Webmasters may use anchor text to procure high results in search engine results pages. Google's Webmaster Tools facilitate this optimization by letting website owners view the most common words in anchor text linking to their site. [7] In the past,[ when? ] Google bombing was possible through anchor text manipulation; however, in January 2007, Google announced it had updated its algorithm to minimize the impact of Google bombs, which refers to a prank where people attempt to cause someone else's site to rank for an obscure or meaningless query. [8]

In April 2012, Google announced in its March "Penguin" update that it would be changing the way it handled anchor text, implying that anchor text would no longer be as important an element for their ranking metrics. [9] Moving forward, Google would be paying more attention to a diversified link profile which has a mix of anchor text and other types of links. [10]

However a 2016 study of anchor text influence across 16,000 keywords found that presence of exact and partial match anchor links continues to have a strong correlation with Google rankings.

August 2016 study conducted by Moz, found that Exact and partial match domains can be affected by over optimization penalty since Google considers domain Brand and naked URL links as Exact match. [11]

Terminology

There are different classifications of anchor text that are used within the search engine optimization community such as the following:

Exact match
An anchor that is used with a keyword that mirrors the page that is being linked to. Example: "search engine optimization" is an exact match anchor because it's linking to a page about "search engine optimization".
Partial match
An anchor that is used with a keyword and a variation that mirrors the page that is being linked to. Example: "different search engine optimization techniques" is a partial match, anchor text as it links to a broader concept (i.e. to the article about search engine optimization).
Branded
A brand that is used as the anchor. "Wikipedia" is a branded anchor text.
Naked link
A URL that is used as an anchor. "www.wikipedia.com" is a naked link anchor.
Generic
A generic word or phrase that is used as the anchor. "Click here" is a generic anchor recommended against on grounds of usability and accessibility. [12] [13] Other variations may include "go here", "visit this website", etc..
Images
Whenever an image is linked, Google will use the "alt" attribute as the anchor text.
Empty
Whenever an image is linked, and the "alt" attribute is empty.
Latent semantic indexing
Latent semantic indexing (LSI) is a method used by Google to determine similar keywords.

Related Research Articles

Meta elements are tags used in HTML and XHTML documents to provide structured metadata about a Web page. They are part of a web page's head section. Multiple Meta elements with different attributes can be used on the same page. Meta elements can be used to specify page description, keywords and any other metadata not provided through the other head elements and attributes.

Spamdexing is the deliberate manipulation of search engine indexes. It involves a number of methods, such as link building and repeating related and/or unrelated phrases, to manipulate the relevance or prominence of resources indexed in a manner inconsistent with the purpose of the indexing system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hyperlink</span> Method of referencing visual computer data

In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference to data that the user can follow or be guided to by clicking or tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks. The text that is linked from is known as anchor text. A software system that is used for viewing and creating hypertext is a hypertext system, and to create a hyperlink is to hyperlink. A user following hyperlinks is said to navigate or browse the hypertext.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. SEO targets unpaid search traffic rather than direct traffic, referral traffic, social media traffic, or paid traffic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Link farm</span> Group of websites that link to each other

On the World Wide Web, a link farm is any group of websites that all hyperlink to other sites in the group for the purpose of increasing SEO rankings. In graph theoretic terms, a link farm is a clique. Although some link farms can be created by hand, most are created through automated programs and services. A link farm is a form of spamming the index of a web search engine. Other link exchange systems are designed to allow individual websites to selectively exchange links with other relevant websites, and are not considered a form of spamdexing.

From the point of view of a given web resource (referent), a backlink is a regular hyperlink on another web resource that points to the referent. A web resource may be a website, web page, or web directory.

In computer hypertext, a URI fragment is a string of characters that refers to a resource that is subordinate to another, primary resource. The primary resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), and the fragment identifier points to the subordinate resource.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising. SEM may incorporate search engine optimization (SEO), which adjusts or rewrites website content and site architecture to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages to enhance pay per click (PPC) listings and increase the Call to action (CTA) on the website.

A sitemap is a list of pages of a web site within a domain.

Sitemaps is a protocol in XML format meant for a webmaster to inform search engines about URLs on a website that are available for web crawling. It allows webmasters to include additional information about each URL: when it was last updated, how often it changes, and how important it is in relation to other URLs of the site. This allows search engines to crawl the site more efficiently and to find URLs that may be isolated from the rest of the site's content. The Sitemaps protocol is a URL inclusion protocol and complements robots.txt, a URL exclusion protocol.

nofollow is a setting on a web page hyperlink that directs search engines not to use the link for page ranking calculations. It is specified in the page as a type of link relation; that is: <a rel="nofollow" ...>. Because search engines often calculate a site's importance according to the number of hyperlinks from other sites, the nofollow setting allows website authors to indicate that the presence of a link is not an endorsement of the target site's importance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Search engine</span> Software system for finding relevant information on the Web

A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages and other relevant information on the Web in response to a user's query. The user inputs a query within a web browser or a mobile app, and the search results are often a list of hyperlinks, accompanied by textual summaries and images. Users also have the option of limiting the search to a specific type of results, such as images, videos, or news.

A search engine results page (SERP) is a webpage that is displayed by a search engine in response to a query by a user. The main component of a SERP is the listing of results that are returned by the search engine in response to a keyword query.

The Hilltop algorithm is an algorithm used to find documents relevant to a particular keyword topic in news search. Created by Krishna Bharat while he was at Compaq Systems Research Center and George A. Mihăilă University of Toronto, it was acquired by Google for use in its news results in February 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Semantic HTML</span> HTML used to reinforce meaning of documents or webpages

Semantic HTML is the use of HTML markup to reinforce the semantics, or meaning, of the information in web pages and web applications rather than merely to define its presentation or look. Semantic HTML is processed by traditional web browsers as well as by many other user agents. CSS is used to suggest how it is presented to human users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bing Webmaster Tools</span> Tool to provide better indexing and search performance on Bing

Bing Webmaster Tools is a free service as part of Microsoft's Bing search engine which allows webmasters to add their websites to the Bing index crawler, see their site's performance in Bing and a lot more. The service also offers tools for webmasters to troubleshoot the crawling and indexing of their website, submission of new URLs, Sitemap creation, submission and ping tools, website statistics, consolidation of content submission, and new content and community resources.

In the field of search engine optimization (SEO), link building describes actions aimed at increasing the number and quality of inbound links to a webpage with the goal of increasing the search engine rankings of that page or website. Briefly, link building is the process of establishing relevant hyperlinks to a website from external sites. Link building can increase the number of high-quality links pointing to a website, in turn increasing the likelihood of the website ranking highly in search engine results. Link building is also a proven marketing tactic for increasing brand awareness.

A canonical link element is an HTML element that helps webmasters prevent duplicate content issues in search engine optimization by specifying the "canonical" or "preferred" version of a web page. It is described in RFC 6596, which went live in April 2012.

Trademark stuffing is a form of keyword stuffing, an unethical search engine optimization method used by webmasters and Internet marketers in order to manipulate search engine ranking results served by websites such as Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Bing. A key characteristic of trademark stuffing is the intent of the infringer to confuse search engines and Internet users into thinking a website or web page is owned or otherwise authorized by the trademark owner. Trademark stuffing does not include using trademarks on third party website pages with the boundaries of Fair Use. When used effectively, trademark stuffing enables infringing websites to capture search engine traffic that may have otherwise been received by an authorized website or trademark owner.

Hummingbird is the codename given to a significant algorithm change in Google Search in 2013. Its name was derived from the speed and accuracy of the hummingbird. The change was announced on September 26, 2013, having already been in use for a month. "Hummingbird" places greater emphasis on natural language queries, considering context and meaning over individual keywords. It also looks deeper at content on individual pages of a website, with improved ability to lead users directly to the most appropriate page rather than just a website's homepage.

References

  1. ↑ "HTML 3.2 Reference Specification".
  2. ↑ "HTML Standard".
  3. ↑ "Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition)".
  4. ↑ Bader Aljaber; Nicola Stokes; James Bailey; Jian Pei (1 April 2010). "Document clustering of scientific texts using citation contexts". Information Retrieval. 13 (2). Springer: 101–131. doi:10.1007/s10791-009-9108-x. S2CID   18990883.
  5. ↑ Beel, Joeran (1 October 2010). "Retrieving Data from Mind Maps to Enhance Search Applications". Bulletin of IEEE Technical Committee on Digital Libraries. Archived from the original on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 5 May 2011.
  6. ↑ "How the Web Uses Anchor Text in Internal Linking [Study]". Search Engine Watch. 24 April 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  7. ↑ Fox, Vanessa (15 March 2007). "Get a more complete picture about how other sites link to you". Official Google Webmaster Central Blog. Archived from the original on 31 March 2007. Retrieved 27 March 2007.
  8. ↑ Cutts, Matt (25 January 2007). "A quick word about Googlebombs". Official Google Webmaster Central Blog. Archived from the original on 24 March 2007. Retrieved 27 March 2007.
  9. ↑ "Google's March Update".
  10. ↑ "Google Penguin Update: Impact of Anchor Text Diversity & Link Relevancy". Search Engine Watch. 6 May 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  11. ↑ "Case Study: The Interconnectedness of Local SEO and Exact Match Domains". Moz. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
  12. ↑ MacDonald, Diana (25 June 2019). Practical UI Patterns for Design Systems: Fast-Track Interaction Design for a Seamless User Experience. Apress. p. 194. ISBN   978-1-4842-4938-3 . Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  13. ↑ "HTML Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0". W3.org. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
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