What is anchor text? Anchor text is usually blue and underlined text. Underneath or behind the anchor text, there is a link to a website or article. The user doesn't see the link details, he only sees the anchor text. The anchor text is what the user/reader clicks on to get more information.

Search engines often look at anchor text to determine what the link is about and thus infer the subject of the site to which the link points. It is widely believed that placing keywords in anchor text helps search engine ranking. (Keywords are the words people commonly use to search for information. For example, "Google Ranking Tips" are three keywords that work as a keyword phrase and are searched for frequently.)

If you submit an article to twenty different article sites, for example, with the same anchor text it may look like you are trying to manipulate the search engines. Additionally, if you trade links with several another sites, and your anchor text on every other site is the same, then Google will pick this up, and may penalize your site for trying to manipulate the results.

A popular blogger trying to optimize his site for the keywords, "Internet Marketing Tips" made an offer to his bloggers. If they would link to his blog with a link that used "Internet Marketing Tips", he would link back to them. Because this blogger got lots of linkbacks, and they all were with the anchor text, "Internet Marketing Tips", there was a problem.

At first, his site was quickly ranked highly for his keywords "Internet Marketing Tips". After a while, however, his ranking fell significantly. He just couldn't determine what had happened. He got some advice from an SEO expert who explained the mechanics of what had happened. He asked some of the people to make corrections to the linkbacks. In no time at all, his site rankings improved.

Make sure that some of the sites that link back to you have different anchor text phrases. Here are some examples of varying the anchor text:

* "Search Engine Tricks to Use",
* "Don't try to trick Google",
* "SEO Tricks to improve your rankings"

These examples of anchor text could all point to the same site, but they just use different keywords.

In short, make sure that you vary your anchor text. Don't use the same anchor text in multiple submissions. It just looks fishy to the search engines.