Anchor Text Checker
See the anchor text distribution of any domain's backlinks for free: the top anchors, how branded, URL and keyword anchors are mixed, and whether the profile looks over-optimized.
The five types of anchor text
Every anchor in the result falls into one of these groups, in this order: empty, URL, brand, generic and, for everything else, exact or partial match.
-
Branded
Growwer, Growwer review
Any anchor that contains the brand, taken from the domain name. Usually the largest group in a natural profile.
-
Naked URL
growwer.com, https://growwer.com/
The address itself. Common when people cite a source without writing a sentence around it.
-
Exact or partial match
buy backlinks, link building services
Any other descriptive text. We don't know your target keywords, so every descriptive anchor lands here, exact and partial alike.
-
Generic
click here, website, read more
Words that say nothing about the page they point to. Harmless in moderation, useless for relevance.
-
Empty or image
(no text)
Links without anchor text: images without alt text and empty links.
How to read the anchor distribution
Shares are counted in referring domains, not backlinks, so one site with a sitewide footer link doesn't outweigh a hundred sites that mention you once.
A profile led by the brand and the URL looks like links people chose to give. When exact and partial match anchors reach about 33% of the referring domains, the checker flags it: a rule of thumb for when to look closer, not a threshold Google publishes.
Context matters. A young site with ten links can swing on one anchor, and some brands are keywords themselves. Read the table before you act on the chart.
Signs that deserve a closer look
- The same commercial phrase on hundreds of unrelated domains
- Keyword anchors ahead of the brand at the top of the table
- Anchors in languages or niches that have nothing to do with the site
- A sudden batch of new keyword anchors after a quiet period
What to do with your anchor text data
From finding the links behind an anchor to choosing the anchors of the next ones.
-
Too many keyword anchors? Audit them
Find out which domains carry the commercial anchors, whether they're sites you'd want links from at all, and whether a few of them deserve a disavow.
Run the free backlink audit -
See the links behind each anchor
The backlink checker lists the referring domains of any site with a sample link and its anchor, so you can trace an anchor back to the pages that use it.
Open the backlink checker -
Rebalance with the next links
You can't rewrite the anchors other sites chose, but you choose the next ones. On Growwer you set the anchor of every link: brand, URL or a natural phrase.
Buy links with your anchor
Anchor text checker FAQ
How the checker classifies anchors and how to act on the result.
- It lists the visible text of the links that point at a domain, groups the anchors by type and shows how they are spread. This one reads the top 100 anchors of the domain's live backlinks from DataForSEO and ranks them by the number of referring domains that use each one.
- There is no official ratio. Natural profiles tend to be led by branded and URL anchors, with a mix of generic and descriptive ones. The checker flags a profile when exact and partial match anchors reach about a third of the referring domains: a rule of thumb for when to look closer, not a limit Google publishes.
- Google's spam policies name links with optimized anchor text in articles and press releases as an example of link schemes. A profile where commercial anchors dominate is a pattern worth fixing, above all when those links were bought or exchanged.
- It takes the brand from the domain name (growwer from growwer.com) and marks every anchor that contains it as branded. A brand that differs from its domain, or a very short one, can be missed, so read the table before you act on the chart.
- Exact and partial match depend on the keyword you want to rank for, and the tool doesn't know it. So every descriptive anchor that isn't the brand, the URL or a generic phrase counts in one group.
- It's the share of referring domains whose links with these anchors carry no nofollow. A healthy profile has both kinds; the dofollow vs nofollow guide explains why.
- Audit where the keyword anchors come from, ask for changes or removal where a link is clearly manipulative, and build new links with branded, URL and natural anchors until the mix evens out. Our anchor text study goes deeper.
Choose the anchor of every link you build
Pick the outlet, check its metrics and set the anchor before you buy, or let our team plan the anchor map for you.
These companies already trust Growwer
How can we help?
If you have questions, talk to one of our experts.