To Anchor, or Not to Anchor

Much is made of the power of anchor text, to the point that people use it without considering whether they SHOULD use it. Anchor text is not, in fact, the answer to every link.

The drawback to anchor text is that the link is hidden. Search engines don’t mind that, they LIKE anchor text because it tells them what the link is about. But there are times when, because it is hidden, the link may be lost.

• Some article databases do not let you embed hyperlinks. In that case, you MUST use a bare URL, beside the name of the link or the description of it.
• Sometimes, even when the hyperlink CAN be embedded, you’ll want to leave it bare. Because if the article is copied and pasted, either into a document where the hyperlink is lost, or into another article database where the hyperlink is not allowed, you want that URL to go along for the ride, no matter where the text goes.
• If the item has a high likelihood of being printed, you’ll want to leave the URL bare as well.

When you can place a link within good anchor text, it is desirable to do so. But you must think about the end uses, and your goals, before you assume that anchor text is always the right choice.

For those times when it is wiser not to use anchor text, put a good description or name right beside the URL. It reputedly does not have quite the same power, but it will help enough to be worth the effort.