# Anchor text quality

> Anchor text is the clickable text of a link. Good anchor text says where the link leads, unlike generic phrases such as 'click here' or 'more'.

- **Check ID:** S14
- **Area:** [SEO](https://be1st.ai/glossary/seo)
- **Tool:** [SEO + Security + Performance](https://be1st.ai/tools/ssp-audit)
- **Page:** https://be1st.ai/glossary/seo/anchor-text-quality

## Why it matters

Anchor text helps search engines understand the content of the target page. Descriptive anchor texts like 'SEO optimization guide' are far more useful than 'click here', both for users and search engines.

## In practice

Google uses descriptive anchor texts in its own documentation, such as 'see our structured data guide'. Conversely, email marketing campaigns often use 'click here', which is a missed opportunity from an SEO perspective.

## How be1st checks it

Checks the quality of anchor texts (link texts). Anchor texts should be descriptive and relevant, not generic like 'click here', 'here', 'more', or 'read more'. The check also reports empty links that have neither text nor an accessible name (e.g. aria-label).

[SEO + Security + Performance](https://be1st.ai/tools/ssp-audit), SEO tab.

Every check ends as: Pass, Warning, Fail.

## Sources

- [SEO Starter Guide](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide) (Google Search Central)
- [Lighthouse SEO Audits](https://web.dev/articles/pass-lighthouse-seo-audit) (web.dev)

## Related terms

- [Structured data](https://be1st.ai/glossary/seo/structured-data): Structured data is machine-readable markup, usually JSON-LD with the Schema.org vocabulary, that says what a page contains: a product, an article, a company or an event.
- [Clean URLs](https://be1st.ai/glossary/seo/clean-urls): A clean URL is a short, readable web address made of words, without long query strings, session IDs, encoded spaces or hashbangs.
- [HTML lang attribute](https://be1st.ai/glossary/seo/html-lang-attribute): The lang attribute on the `<html>` element declares the language of a page. Screen readers, translation tools and search engines rely on it.
- [Favicon](https://be1st.ai/glossary/seo/favicon): A favicon is the small icon of a website that browsers show in tabs and bookmarks and Google shows next to the site name in results.
- [Status code and broken links](https://be1st.ai/glossary/seo/status-code-and-broken-links): An HTTP status code is the server's three-digit answer to a request, such as 200 (OK) or 404 (not found). A broken link points to a page that answers with an error.
- [robots.txt](https://be1st.ai/glossary/seo/robots-txt): robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of a website that tells crawlers which parts of the site they may and may not visit.