Anchor text for SaaS backlinks: what I use, and what I avoid

The anchor types, with a SaaS example for each

All examples use Acme, a made-up project management tool.

What Google says, and what it does not

Google's link guidance asks for anchor text that is descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant to the page it points to. It also says the words around a link matter, and it warns against generic anchors like "click here". On the other side it is direct: keyword stuffing is a violation of its spam policies, and that includes stuffed anchors.

Google has never published a "safe" anchor text ratio. The percentage tables you see online (so much branded, so much exact match) are someone's guess based on other sites, not a rule. Use them as a target and you end up building links to fill a quota.

One more point, because it applies to every paid link: Google's spam policies say paid links should carry rel="sponsored" or nofollow. Most link insertions carry a publisher fee, so there is risk whatever the anchor. A natural anchor does not make a paid link safe. A stuffed one makes it easier to spot.

The warning sign is a pattern, not a percentage

What looks bought is the shape of the profile, not one number:

• The same commercial phrase, word for word, on many unrelated sites.
• Those links appearing within a few weeks of each other.
• The anchor sitting in a sentence that is not about your product.

A profile with mostly brand and descriptive anchors, each one different, in sentences that make sense, does not show that shape. You do not need a spreadsheet of percentages to get there. You need to stop reusing the same phrase.

How I pick the anchor for one link

1. Start from the page the link points to, not the keyword list

The anchor should describe that page. For SaaS sites this is usually one of a few page types:

2. Check whether the phrase already exists in the article

If the editor's article already has words that describe your page, the link can sit on those words and nothing else in the article changes. That is the most natural link there is.

3. If it does not, add one sentence that fits the paragraph

I write a single sentence that continues what the paragraph is already saying and carries the anchor. I send the editor the exact instruction, so nothing is left to guess:

After: "the exact sentence already on the page"
Add: "the new sentence, with the anchor text"

4. Keep it out of someone else's sentence

I never put a client's anchor inside a sentence that is about another brand, or next to another company's link. It reads like an ad and helps no one.

5. Place it where a reader will see it

A link high in the article, in a paragraph about the topic, gets read. A link in the last line of a long article mostly does not. Some clients ask for a specific position, such as the first part of the article. If the article allows it naturally, I follow it. If it would force the sentence, I say so.

Planning anchors across a campaign

For a set of links, I plan the anchors before I place any of them, so I can see the whole set at once. Here is how I would plan 10 links for Acme (an illustrative plan, not a rule):

Ten links, ten different anchors, most of them brand or descriptive, one close to a commercial phrase. Spreading links across several pages also helps more than pointing all ten at the homepage.

How to check your own anchor profile

In Ahrefs, open Site Explorer for your domain and go to the Anchors report:

1. Sort by referring domains, not by links. One sitewide link can show up hundreds of times and distort the picture.
2. Scan the top 20 anchors. Your brand name should be near the top. If a commercial phrase is at the top instead, look at where those links came from.
3. Look for repeats. The same exact phrase on many domains is the pattern to fix in your next order. Change the anchors you choose from now on.
4. Check the context of anything odd. Open a few of the linking pages and read the sentence around the link.

If you find a run of repeated exact-match anchors from links you bought, the simplest fix is to stop adding to it and vary from here. Asking a site to reword an anchor is possible on a paid placement. Disavowing is a last resort, and Google's own guidance limits it to cases where spammy links have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action.

How the sites themselves are chosen is a separate question. That is covered in how I vet a link insertion site, and why DR alone is not the test in DR vs organic traffic.