Anchor text distribution is the share of a site’s backlinks that use each anchor type: branded, URL, generic, partial-match and exact-match. This page defines the five types, gives working-heuristic ratio bands, walks through a 40-link worked example, and shows how to measure and correct a skewed profile. The bands are our working heuristic, not a Google threshold.
What is anchor text distribution?
Anchor text distribution is the percentage of a site’s backlinks that use each type of anchor text, measured across all referring links and across the links to each target page. The ratio describes how a profile reads, not how many links it holds.
Google’s link guidance asks for anchor text that describes the page it links to, and its spam policy lists links with optimized anchor text in distributed guest posts as link spam. The distribution shows which anchor types a profile uses most.
What are the five anchor text types?
The five anchor text types are branded, naked URL, generic, partial-match and exact-match, and each carries a different amount of optimization signal. Classify every anchor into exactly one type. Branded and URL anchors carry the least; exact-match anchors carry the most.
| Type | Example | Working band | Signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Branded | Backlink Agency | 35% to 50% | Lowest: names the source |
| Naked URL | backlinkagency.net | 15% to 25% | Lowest: names the address |
| Generic | click here, this guide | 10% to 15% | None: carries no topic |
| Partial-match | guide to buying links safely | 10% to 20% | Moderate: topic inside a longer phrase |
| Exact-match | buy backlinks | 0% to 5% | Highest: the target keyword alone |
Image links count as anchors too: Google uses the alt attribute of the img element as the anchor text, so classify it by the same five types.
What does a natural anchor text distribution look like?
A natural distribution leads with branded and URL anchors, holds generic and partial-match anchors in the middle and keeps exact-match anchors to a small remainder. The example below shows a 40-link profile that stays inside every working band.
| Type | Links | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Branded | 18 | 45.0% |
| Naked URL | 8 | 20.0% |
| Generic | 5 | 12.5% |
| Partial-match | 7 | 17.5% |
| Exact-match | 2 | 5.0% |
| Total | 40 | 100% |
The two exact-match links sit at the top of the band. A profile that held eight exact-match links out of 40 would carry 20%, four times the band, and that single row is the pattern an audit flags first.
How do you calculate your anchor text distribution?
Calculate the distribution in four steps: export every backlink with its anchor, normalize spelling and case, classify each anchor into one of the five types and divide each type’s count by the total. Run the calculation on the whole site and again on each money page.
- Export the anchor list from a backlink index. The Search Console Top linking text report exports grouped link text, not one row per link.
- Normalize: lowercase every anchor, strip trailing punctuation and merge spelling variants.
- Classify each unique anchor, then count links per type.
- Divide each count by the total and compare the result with the bands above.
The anchor text analyzer performs steps 2 to 4 on a pasted list. Each target page gets its own table, because a skew on one page hides inside a healthy sitewide average.
How do you correct a skewed anchor distribution?
Correct a skewed distribution by adding branded, URL and generic links until the exact-match share falls inside its band, and not by removing links in bulk. Dilution needs no permission from other sites, and it works because each anchor share is a ratio of the total.
- Order new placements with branded or URL anchors and no keyword request.
- Replace weak exact-match links by asking publishers to edit the anchor to the brand name.
- Reserve partial-match anchors for editorial placements where the phrase reads as a sentence.
- Re-measure after every batch of new links.
Contextual edits on existing articles, such as edits in ranking articles, let each new link carry the anchor type the profile lacks. Deeper skews, with one phrase carrying a third or more of all anchors, belong to the guide on anchor over-optimization. Link quality matters alongside anchor type, and the scorecard on how to judge a link covers it.
What does Google say about anchor text?
Google’s link guidance calls for anchor text that is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to both the page it sits on and the page it links to. Its spam policy lists optimized anchor text in distributed articles and guest posts as link spam.
The ratio bands on this page are our working heuristic, and Google publishes no percentage. The two Google statements frame the target: write anchors that describe the destination, and avoid anchors that exist to carry a keyword. The guide on what anchor text is opens the full topic.
Related: anchor mixes for store category pages and anchor-safe per-placement packages.