A Nashville home services company had a problem they didn’t know about. Their SEO agency had built 200 links over 18 months—solid work by most measures. But when rankings suddenly dropped 40 positions for their primary keyword, an anchor text audit revealed why: 67% of those links used the exact phrase “Nashville plumber” as anchor text.
That’s not a link profile. That’s a flashing sign saying “we built these links ourselves.”
Natural link profiles don’t look like that. When real websites link to real businesses, they use the company name, generic phrases like “this local plumber,” naked URLs, and occasionally—not predominantly—keyword-rich anchors. The agency had optimized for keyword relevance and created a manipulation signal instead.
This guide covers anchor text strategy for the links you can’t fully control: the external links pointing to your site from other domains. Internal anchor text optimization is straightforward (you control it entirely). External anchor text requires understanding what healthy profiles look like, how to influence anchor distribution without controlling it, and how to fix profiles that have gone wrong.
How Anchor Text Signals Work
When a site links to yours, the clickable text becomes a relevance signal. Google interprets that text as an editorial statement about what your page covers. One link with anchor text “emergency plumbing services” tells Google your page probably relates to emergency plumbing.
Multiply that across many links, and patterns emerge. If 50 different sites link to your page and 30 of them use variations of “plumbing services,” Google has strong evidence about your page’s topic. This reinforces your relevance for related searches.
The mechanism is powerful—which is why it got abused.
In the pre-Penguin era (before 2012), SEOs discovered that building links with exact-match keyword anchors dramatically improved rankings. A site wanting to rank for “Nashville plumber” would acquire hundreds of links all using that exact phrase. It worked until Google noticed the pattern and built systems to detect it.
Now, unnatural anchor text patterns trigger algorithmic suppression or manual penalties. The same tactic that once boosted rankings now tanks them.
The challenge: you still want anchor text relevance, but you need it to look natural. That means understanding what natural actually looks like.
What Natural Anchor Profiles Look Like
Study sites that rank well without aggressive link building—established businesses, media properties, popular tools—and patterns emerge in their anchor text distribution.
Branded anchors dominate. When people link to businesses naturally, they typically use the business name. “Check out Hoffman Plumbing” or “according to Hoffman Plumbing’s website.” Natural profiles often show 30-50% branded anchors.
Naked URLs are common. People paste links without formatting them. Forum posts, comments, citations—these generate raw URL anchors. Natural profiles typically include 10-20% naked URLs.
Generic anchors appear frequently. “Click here,” “this website,” “read more,” “their site”—these carry minimal keyword relevance but occur naturally when writers link mid-sentence without keyword consideration. Expect 15-25% generic anchors in natural profiles.
Keyword-rich anchors are the minority. Exact-match and partial-match keyword anchors occur naturally—writers sometimes do describe linked content with relevant terms. But in unmanipulated profiles, these typically constitute only 10-25% of total anchors, not the majority.
Image anchors add variety. When images link to pages, the alt text becomes the anchor. This creates additional variation in anchor profiles.
| Anchor Type | Natural Range | Manipulation Signal |
|---|---|---|
| Branded | 30-50% | Under 15% |
| Naked URL | 10-20% | Under 5% |
| Generic | 15-25% | Under 10% |
| Exact-match keyword | 5-15% | Over 25% |
| Partial-match keyword | 10-20% | Over 30% |
| Image/other | 5-15% | — |
These ranges aren’t rules—they’re patterns observed in sites with healthy, naturally-acquired link profiles. Your specific distribution depends on your industry, content type, and how people naturally reference your site.
The Nashville plumber with 67% exact-match anchors was roughly 4-5x outside natural ranges. That’s not a subtle problem.
Analyzing Your Current Profile
Before optimizing, understand where you stand. Several tools provide anchor text data.
Google Search Console shows some linking anchor text under Links > Top linking text. The data is sampled and limited but free and directly from Google.
Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz provide comprehensive anchor text reports across your entire backlink profile. These tools show distribution percentages, let you filter by anchor type, and track changes over time.
Export and categorize. Pull your complete anchor list and categorize each: branded, naked URL, generic, exact-match, partial-match, or other. Calculate percentages. Compare against natural ranges.
Segment by page. Site-wide distribution might look fine while specific pages have problems. Check anchor profiles for your most important ranking targets individually. A page might have healthy overall links but problematic anchor concentration on the few links pointing to it.
Look for red flags:
- Any anchor type over 40% (except branded)
- Exact-match keywords over 25%
- Branded anchors under 15%
- Sudden shifts in distribution
- Identical anchors from many different domains
- Anchors that don’t match your content at all
A Nashville law firm discovered their main practice page had 73% exact-match anchors for “Nashville personal injury lawyer” despite overall site anchor distribution looking healthy. The problem was concentrated on their highest-priority page.
Influencing External Anchors
You can’t control what anchor text other sites use. But you can influence it through several approaches.
Create content people describe naturally. A resource titled “2025 Nashville Home Maintenance Checklist” tends to earn descriptive anchors because people reference it by name. A page titled “Services” earns generic anchors because there’s nothing specific to reference.
Content types that earn descriptive anchors:
- Named studies and reports
- Tools with distinctive names
- Guides with specific scope
- Resources with clear value propositions
Build brand recognition. The more people know your brand, the more they use your brand name when linking. This naturally increases branded anchor percentage without manipulation.
Diversify linkable assets. If all your links point to one page, that page’s anchor profile reflects whatever those linkers chose. Building multiple link-worthy pages across your site means different pages earn different natural anchor patterns.
Suggest anchors carefully in outreach. When requesting links (guest posts, resource page inclusion, etc.), you can suggest anchor phrasing. But explicit anchor instructions look manipulative. Frame suggestions naturally:
Too direct: “Please link using the anchor text ‘Nashville plumbing services.'”
Better: “We just published a comprehensive guide to Nashville plumbing emergencies that might be useful for your readers.”
The second implies a descriptive anchor without demanding it. Most publishers will use something natural anyway—let them.
Earn editorial links. Links from journalists, bloggers, and publishers who genuinely find your content valuable use anchors those writers choose naturally. This diversity is impossible to manufacture and improves your profile over time.
Fixing Problematic Profiles
If your anchor profile shows manipulation signals, remediation requires careful work.
Stop building problematic links. If an agency or internal team has been building exact-match anchor links, stop immediately. Continuing the pattern makes things worse.
Dilute with diverse anchors. The goal isn’t removing bad anchors (often impossible) but adding enough diverse anchors that the percentage shifts. New links with branded, generic, and varied anchors reduce the concentration of problematic ones.
If you have 100 links and 50 use exact-match anchors (50%), adding 100 new links with natural anchor distribution might bring you to 50 exact-match out of 200 total (25%)—still high but less egregious.
Request anchor changes where possible. For links you have relationships with—guest posts on partner sites, directory listings you manage, sponsorship mentions—request anchor text updates. Convert exact-match anchors to branded or descriptive alternatives.
Consider disavow for the worst offenders. Google’s disavow tool tells Google to ignore specific links when evaluating your site. Use it for:
- Links from obviously spammy sites
- Links with manipulative anchors you can’t remove
- Patterns that clearly indicate paid or schemed links
Disavow carefully. Removing legitimate links hurts more than helping. Only disavow links that clearly damage rather than help.
Document and be patient. Anchor profile changes take time to affect rankings. Google recrawls links periodically, processes disavow files on its own schedule, and algorithm responses aren’t immediate. Expect 3-6 months for significant profile changes to fully register.
The Nashville home services company took 8 months to recover. They stopped keyword-anchor link building, focused on earning natural branded links through local PR and community involvement, requested anchor changes on directory listings they controlled, and disavowed the most egregious spam links. Rankings gradually returned; organic traffic eventually exceeded pre-penalty levels.
Industry-Specific Patterns
Different industries show different natural anchor patterns based on how people in those industries link.
Local services (plumbers, lawyers, dentists) naturally earn:
- Branded anchors from directories and local citations
- Generic anchors from community mentions
- Occasional keyword anchors from industry resources
- High percentage of naked URLs from simple listings
Local anchor profiles should skew heavily branded/generic. Keyword-rich anchors are relatively rare in natural local linking.
E-commerce naturally earns:
- Product name anchors from reviews and mentions
- Brand anchors from comparisons
- Generic anchors from “buy here” type links
- Naked URLs from price comparison sites
Product-specific anchors are natural here. “Nike Air Max 90” as anchor text is expected for a product page selling that shoe.
B2B and SaaS naturally earns:
- Brand and product name anchors
- Descriptive anchors from industry publications
- Generic anchors from resource roundups
- Tool/feature name anchors for specific functionality
Publishers and media naturally earn:
- Article title anchors
- Branded anchors for site-wide references
- Topic-descriptive anchors for cited content
- Author name anchors for individual pieces
Understanding your industry’s natural patterns helps you evaluate whether your profile fits or stands out suspiciously.
Monitoring and Maintenance
Anchor profiles drift over time. New links arrive, old links disappear, competitors may attack with negative SEO. Ongoing monitoring catches problems before they become crises.
Monthly distribution check. Export anchor data monthly, calculate percentages, compare to previous months. Look for sudden shifts that might indicate manipulation (yours or someone else’s).
Alert for suspicious patterns. Set up monitoring for your brand plus “cheap” or similar spam indicators. Negative SEO attacks often use obviously manipulative anchors to trigger penalties against competitors.
Track competitor profiles. Understanding how competitors’ anchor profiles look provides context for your own. If all competitors in your space show 40% exact-match anchors, the industry pattern is different than typical. (This doesn’t make it safe—it might mean the whole industry is at risk.)
Regular disavow updates. Review your disavow file quarterly. Add new problematic links, remove disavowed links that no longer exist. Keep the file current.
Connect anchors to rankings. When rankings shift for specific keywords, check if anchor text patterns for those pages changed. Correlation doesn’t prove causation, but changes often coincide with profile shifts.
The Long Game
Healthy anchor profiles result from earning links naturally over time, not from optimizing every anchor individually.
The most sustainable approach:
- Build a brand people mention by name
- Create content worth linking to with descriptive titles
- Engage in activities that earn editorial coverage
- Let diverse links accumulate naturally over years
This produces profiles that look natural because they are natural. No manipulation to detect. No penalties to fear. No recovery projects to manage.
The Nashville home services company now focuses on local sponsorships, community involvement, and creating genuinely useful homeowner resources. Their anchor profile has become naturally diverse. They don’t track anchor percentages obsessively anymore—they don’t need to. When links come from real relationships and real value, anchor diversity takes care of itself.
Resources
- Google Search Console Links Report: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9049606
- Google Link Spam Policies: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies#link-spam
- Google Disavow Tool: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487
- Ahrefs Anchor Text Guide: https://ahrefs.com/blog/anchor-text/
Anchor text distribution ranges cited reflect observed patterns in naturally-acquired link profiles as of 2024-2025. Algorithm sensitivity to manipulation signals continues evolving; the principle—natural patterns are safe, manipulated patterns are risky—remains constant.