If you want to rank well in search engines, links, specifically backlinks, are essential. They signal to Google and other search engines that others like your content and endorse it.
Besides content, they are the most important ranking factor that Google considers. The search engine uses links to gauge the relevancy of you pages for different topics and also to discover new pages to index.
Usually, Google is not super forthcoming about their algorithm and how exactly they judge websites, however, they recently published a guide for link building best practices. The earlier version only contained information about how to make sure your links are crawlable. However, the new edition also talks about making sure your links are understandable and relevant.
To make it easier for you to know what that means for your website, we have gone through the guide and summarized the most important points for you below. That way, you can get all the crucial information with examples and some extra explanations without having to do the work yourself.
1. Ensure Crawlability By Using the Right Format
This is what the original document was mainly about. For this topic, the guide says to only provide links in the form of HTML anchor tags with an href attribute. In case you don’t know that looks like, here’s an example:
In HTML an element creates a link and is called anchor tag. The href attribute defines where the link points to and the part between and (the opening and closing anchor tag) is called anchor text. This will become relevant soon.
For now, the important part to understand is that this is the format the Google prefers. It does not crawl links in most other styles, e.g. links created with JavaScript.
2. Anchor Text: Make It Clear and Relevant
If you are still not sure about what exactly anchor text is (because you don’t know HTML), think of it as the part of text in your content that gets highlighted when you add a link to it.
This, too, has relevance for helping Google understand what your content and the pages you link to are about.
One of the best practices Google talks about in their link guide is to use rich anchor text. That means, people and search engine should be able to guess what you are linking to from looking at the link itself.
For example, here is a bad link:
user experience and so the Google crawler can figure out the topic of the link target.
If, for some reason, you can’t add anchor text, at least provide a title attribute:
According to Google’s document, the search engine is also able to understand that.
For images that link elsewhere, and also generally for image SEO, be sure to include descriptive ALT tags with information what the visual contains, like so:
How to Write Good Anchor Text
Ok, so your links should contain anchor text. So far so good. But what exactly does Google consider good anchor text?
Well, besides being descriptive, the search engine asks it to be concise and relevant to both the page the link is on and the one it links to. That means, avoid generic text like “read more” or “click here”. Instead, make sure the link itself provides enough context for anyone coming across it:
One of the best practices the Google guide gives is to try and read the link out of context and think whether you would still be able to understand what it links to without the surrounding text.
In addition, use natural, precise language. That means, don’t keyword stuff your anchor text or you’ll get penalized. Google has enough technology (see BERT, RankBrain) to understand proper language these days. Simply keep the reader in mind and what kind of information they would need to decide if a link is interesting to them or not.
At the same time, don’t make your links too long, focus on what is most relevant.
Remember the part about being concise? The link above is too descriptive, a better solution would be this:
So, if you want to learn more about our SEO services including site audits, on-page optimization, link building, and performance improvements, get in touch!
So, what’s the right number of words to use in your anchor text? A good goal is to shoot for between two and five words. This allows you to find a good balance between brevity and sufficient detail.
3. Space Out Your Links
Another guideline that Google’s document on linking best practices contains is to provide enough space between individual links on your pages. Avoid having many of them in a row in the same sentence.
Google uses both internal links (to pages on your own site) and external ones (links to other websites) to understand what your page is about and should rank for. Therefore, they want you to use both kinds.
External links are also not something that takes away value from your own website. In fact, they can make it more valuable by establishing trustworthiness, such as when you use them to cite your sources.
Exceptions are links that you have been paid for. You should mark those with the sponsored or nofollow attribute. Also use nofollow when linking to pages you don’t trust or don’t want to endorse. However, avoid using them for all external links on your site, that’s not in accordance to Google link best practices.
As for internal links, all your important pages should have at least one link pointing to them. This is necessary for Google to even be able to discover them naturally. In addition, use internal links to provide additional relevant resources for the page that your visitors are on.
What’s more, be sure to follow the same practices as discussed above and include descriptive and relevant anchor text and don’t overdo it with linking. While there is no right or wrong number of internal links on a page, keep it so they don’t detract from the content and make it hard to read.
If you are not sure how to best do this, check our article on internal linking strategy (notice the anchor text?). That way, both Google and your visitors can understand better what the rest of your website is about.
In a Nutshell: Google Link Best Practices
Google is not always forthcoming when it comes to information how to better optimize your web pages. However, in their new guide on best practices for links, they provide some concrete information how they would like you to use links. Let’s summarize the main points once more:
Use HTML anchor tags to ensure crawlability
Make your anchor texts rich, meaning informative and relevant
Include both internal and external links, the same rules apply to each of them
Follow the above to provide Google with all the information it needs to better understand what your pages and links are about. Besides that, follow general best practices for linking, especially making sure that what you link to is high-quality content and relevant to what you are talking about.
What’s the most surprising lesson you have learned from Google’s new link guidelines? Let us know in the comments below!
