anchor text distribution
Also called: anchor text ratio, anchor ratio, anchor text profile
Anchor text distribution is the mix of link-text types across a site's backlinks, grouped into categories like branded, exact-match keyword, partial-match, generic ("click here"), and naked URL. A varied, natural spread reads as earned links; a heavy exact-match skew reads as manipulation.
Every backlink carries link text (the anchor), and grouping all of a page’s or domain’s anchors by type gives you its distribution. The common buckets: branded (your name or URL), exact-match (the precise keyword you want to rank for), partial-match (that keyword inside a longer phrase), generic (“read more”, “this page”), and naked URL.
Why the mix matters
Google’s link guidance says good anchor text is “descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant,” and tells writers to “resist the urge to cram every keyword” into a link, calling that a spam-policy violation. So a profile dominated by exact-match commercial anchors is the opposite of what earned links look like. It reads as anchors you picked, not anchors editors picked for you.
The data undercuts the old ratio obsession too. Ahrefs analyzed 384,614 pages across 19,840 keywords and found only a weak correlation (0.1436 Spearman) between exact-match anchor percentage and rankings, advising: “Don’t try to manipulate your anchor text ratios at all.”
An earned profile tends to look varied by default:
Branded "SEOBRO", "seobro.com"
Naked URL "https://seobro.com/..."
Generic "click here", "this guide"
Partial match "a Madrid SEO agency"
Exact match "link building services"The practical read: don’t engineer percentages, but do audit for footprints. A single commercial phrase repeated across most of your links, or a sudden spike of identical exact-match anchors, is the pattern unnatural-link systems look for.
How it affects your traffic
When you run outreach or place links, the anchors you request are what shape your distribution, so this is a link-building decision more than a content one. Stacking exact-match commercial anchors is the classic footprint that gets links discounted or the whole profile flagged, which stalls the rankings you paid for. A sound program earns mostly branded and descriptive anchors so equity flows to your money pages without tripping spam signals. Our Link Building work builds that varied, editorially placed profile on purpose.
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