An anchor tag <a> in HTML is a link to text on which you can click to move from one Webpage to another webpage. 

Anchor tags are used mostly to link WebPages, they can also be used to initiate downloads and link to documents like PDFs, Images, XLS, DOCS and also files which are in Google Drive or Cloud Servers. And this is the only reason that you should only click anchor tags from those sites which you can trust. 

The text in anchor tags tells the readers of the article that what is expect to open before they click the link. Anchor words are the promise about what is on the other side of the link, so they must be highly relevant to the page which is being open by clicking on the respective link.

The text in anchor tags tells Google algorithms that what is your content about which is being opened after clicking. Google’s algorithms use these anchor choices to make sure you are not engaging in spammy practices and to understand the topics these are linking to.

Anchor Tags Text and Backlinks:

There are two kinds of anchor links. 

1. No-follow Link and
2. Follow link

On the HTML side, the only difference is that a nofollow link contains an extra piece of code in the anchor tag itself. A no-follow link would look like this:

<a href="https://www.omaada.com/ "rel="nofollow">Visit Home Page</a>

In Google algorithms, this small piece of code makes a great difference. Below is difference between no-follow and follow links:

• No-follow: No-follow link tells Google not to take the backlink into account when determining page ranking or SEO rankinig. Since 1st March 2020 Google is starting to take nofollow links as a hint in determining a website’s position in SERP.
• Sponsored: This link tells Google that this link was obtained through some agreements between you and a publisher.
• UGC (User Generated Content): Tells Google that the link (and the whole content) was placed on this page by users.
• Follow: Tells Google to give credit to the page you’re linking to and take it into account when scanning your links.

When we talk about the SEO (search engine optimization) and Google algorithms, Google identifies at least ten different types of anchor texts.

Generic Anchor

Branded Anchor

Exact Match Link

Partial Match Anchor

Related Anchor

Random Anchor

Naked Link

Brand + Keyword Anchor

Image Anchor

Long-Tail Anchors