How Important Are Anchor Text Links?

Some webmasters optimize certain pages for different keywords, and once they’re done, they think that that’s all they can do to increase their rankings for those keywords. This is certainly not the case, as anchor text links are even more important than the page itself according to Google experts. You might ask just how important are anchor text links, and there are a few examples out there to show that they are more than vital to getting a high listing.


For those who don’t know, a Google bomb is a practice used to get a certain page listed very highly in the search engines for a particular keyword or phrase (most people give it a negative connotation even though it refers to both positive and negative practices). The way people do this is by linking that particular keyword or phrase to the intended page numerous times, and after a period of time (when done on a consistent basis), the keyword ranks highly in Google. The most famous example of a Google bomb is the “miserable failure” bomb, in which at one point almost all the search engines had the #1 result for “miserable failure” being a biography of George W. Bush, despite that page not containing the phrase “miserable failure” even once. Although this can be humorous to some, this shows the immense power in anchor text links, as they can lead to both positive and negative results in the search engines. The first recorded infamous Google bomb was recorded in 1999 when the #1 result for “more evil than Satan himself” was a link to the Microsoft homepage.

These are just a few examples of how truly important anchor text links are to any SEO campaign. The first place to start is within your website. By finding any keywords on your different pages, do yourself a favor and link some of these to the intended pages. Getting five to ten links in your articles or blog posts to different pages that are going after those individual keywords can add up after a while, and can do a majority of the work for you. For those who don’t have the luxury of large amounts of original content on their own websites, take advantage of article directories through syndication. By syndicating the articles you have to numerous article directories, you can insert anchor text links into the body or resource boxes. Other ways you can get anchor text links include comment posting, social media, and press releases. Just asking friends or family that have websites for a link or two with the desired keyword can make a difference.