what is "link anchor text"?

[ajay2011]

Can u pl. explain what is link anchor text?

[tedster]

It's just the clicakble words for any link.

[stephen011]

Text that contains a Website URL(Link).It is a clickable word.

[rlange]

<a href="http://www.google.com/">this is link anchor text</a> = this is link anchor text [google.com]

--
Ryan

[dunivan]

What they said. [w3schools.com...]

[Robert Charlton]

It can be helpful to think about an inbound link as a reference, analogous to a personal recommendation.

Think of the page that links to you as who the reference is... and think of the anchor text as what the reference says.

[Hissingsid]

You guys are all just too kind. That question is akin to walking into a bar and asking what beer is.

On most forums it would have been met with RTFM or just search for "link anchor text" on Bing.

Cheers

Sid

[tedster]

Sid, everyone started somewhere and had to learn the basics. We sometimes have members in middle school and possibly younger. I've always thought one of the stand out positives here is that everyone can be treated with courtesy, whether a raw beginner or a 15 year veteran. It creates a good atmosphere for brainstorming, too. Even more, we've had some really deep threads build from a really innocent "newbie" question.

Everyone who helps keep the friendly atmosphere here, give yourself a pat on the back - it's a very good thing you're doing.

[Donna]

Thats one of the reasons this is THE greatest webmasters forum online. It will literally take you ages reading only the entry info to internet marketing and so on.

[tigger]

I agree Sid - whilst newbie questions are fine such basic one like this could be found by just doing a search not posting on a forum. If there was a signature within the postings I would understand just why it was asked but as its not I'm amazed this thread went live

[nuthin]

I love explaining this question to clients, heck even designers & developers I'm sure struggle when I talk about SEO here and where a web dev and online marketing company. All be it, I'm the only guy that does the online marketing. Quite humorous.

Hey at least you don't have to provide an answer to "What is a link?" I have had that one before and I struggled to dumb it down.

[incrediBILL]

Geez guys, don't get so bent on someone asking a simple question, we all had to start some where, and the only stupid question is the one not asked.

I can see wanting a qualification of the phrase because everyone talks about links all day long and then someone tosses out the term "link anchor text" and it makes sense to qualify exactly what it is for clarity. Obviously a quick Google search would hit the W3C but that exact phrase isn't on that page which could lead to further ambiguity for the OP.

Besides, you can't build community chasing people off to RTFM, Bing or Google.

Nor can you get clients that way when someone decides coding HTML is best left to others, I doubt they'll seek out the dude that told them to RTFM but they might solicit the guy that gave them a straightforward no BS answer to their inquiry.

Just say'n...

[piatkow]

The only prior knowledge that I would expect from a beginner is basic keyboard skills. You should have mastered stuff like copy and paste before even thinkging about building a web site.

However, on a forum that permits signatures with home page links I have read even more basic questions from people who had set themselves up as web designers. Now that sort of post did get an "unhelpful" response.

[lucy24]

Obviously a quick Google search would hit the W3C but that exact phrase isn't on that page which could lead to further ambiguity for the OP.

Besides, you can't build community chasing people off to RTFM, Bing or Google.

No, they'd just come back asking what "W3C", "OP" and "RTFM" mean :)

The trick is to post in the right forum. Over in Apache the general rule is that the first person to see a question gets to play Bad Cop. The second person may or may not choose to be Good Cop.