What is a backlink anchor text checker?
A backlink anchor text checker sorts the clickable words other sites use to link to you into types, such as your brand name, your URL or your target keyword, and shows the share of each. That mix, often called the anchor text ratio or anchor text distribution, tells you whether your links look earned or engineered.
How to check the anchor text of your backlinks
- Get your anchor list. Export it from one of the sources below. A CSV with an Anchor column works, and so does a plain list with one anchor per line.
- Paste or upload it. If the file has a referring domains or links column, the checker counts by it. Otherwise each line counts once.
- Add your brand and keywords. List brand variations and your domain, then the keywords you want to rank for, separated by commas.
- Read the breakdown. Check the share of each type and the notes under the table, then scan the full list to see how each anchor was sorted.
- Compare with a competitor who ranks for your keyword, by pasting their anchors into the optional comparison box.
Where to get your anchor text data
This tool does not crawl the web, so it never shows a partial sample from someone else's index. It reads the list you already have:
- Google Search Console (free, your own site): Links report, External links, Top linking text. Google calls it the most common text in links to your site (Links report help). Export, then paste.
- Ahrefs: Site Explorer, Anchors report, then export. Its Anchors guide suggests filtering to dofollow links to see value passing anchors. The free Ahrefs backlink checker shows a top sample for any domain, useful for a competitor.
- Semrush, Moz or Majestic: export the anchors report of their backlink tool. Any CSV with a column named Anchor or Anchor text works.
Anchor text types the checker uses
| Type | Example | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Branded | LinkHeron, LinkHeron's guide | Your company or product name, alone or in a phrase. Most editorial links look like this, because writers name the company they mention. |
| Naked URL | linkheron.com, https://linkheron.com/pricing/ | The address itself, with or without https:// and a path. Common in citations, directories and resource lists. |
| Partial match | link building for SaaS teams | Contains your keyword or most of its words, inside a longer phrase. Usually reads naturally. |
| Exact match | saas link building | Exactly the keyword you want to rank for, and nothing else. Useful in moderation, and the type Google's spam policies call out when it is built at scale. |
| Generic | click here, read more, this site | Words that say nothing about the page, such as click here or read more. |
| Empty or image | (no text), image links | Image links without alt text, or links with no visible text. Many tools show them as empty or as the image file. |
| Other | anything that fits none of the above | Anything else: descriptive phrases, article titles, people's names. Add brand variations or keywords if too much lands here. |
The checker sorts in this order: empty, naked URL, branded, exact match, partial match, generic, other. So "Acme CRM review" counts as branded even though it might contain a keyword. Google's own advice on anchor text is simply that it should be descriptive, concise and relevant to the linked page.
What is a good anchor text ratio?
There is no official answer. Google has never published a target anchor text ratio, and the percentage tables that circulate in SEO blogs are opinions, often without a source. That is why this checker gives no score. What you can say with confidence is that links writers add on their own mostly use the brand name, the URL or a descriptive phrase, so a natural anchor text distribution is led by those types.
The useful benchmark is your own market: export the anchors of two or three competitors that rank for your main keyword and compare. If they are mostly branded and you are mostly exact match, that difference is worth fixing. Anchor text diversity, a broad mix of types and wordings, matters more than hitting any single percentage.
When anchor text becomes a risk
Google's spam policies on link spam name large scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword rich anchor text links, and paid links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts or press releases. Watch for these signs in your results:
- Exact match anchors outweigh branded and URL anchors together.
- One commercial keyword carries a large share of all links on its own.
- Many links with the same keyword anchor arrived in a short time, often from unrelated sites.
- Keyword anchors sit on sites that publish anything for a fee, the kind our link quality standard rejects.
How to fix an over optimized anchor profile
- Change what you ask for. For new links, request your brand name, the URL or a natural description of the page. Leave exact wording to the editor.
- Earn branded mentions. Partner pages, integration directories, podcasts and expert quotes mostly link with your name.
- Edit links you control. Profiles, directory listings and partner pages can usually be updated to a branded anchor.
- Do not buy links to dilute the ratio. More paid links only add risk. Keep the disavow tool for links you know were built as a scheme, not for every odd anchor.
- Re-check every quarter with a fresh export, and compare against the same competitors.
When you pitch publishers, the guest post email template generator writes requests that leave anchor choice to the editor. If you would rather hand off the work, our SaaS link building and guest posting services agree topic and anchor with you before writing, and you can estimate the budget with the link building cost calculator.