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Understanding the Anchor Terms Report

Updated over 2 weeks ago

The Anchor Terms Report breaks down anchor texts into individual words to show how often each term appears in your backlinks. This gives you a more granular view of your anchor profile and helps identify dominant keywords across all anchor texts.

What the report shows

Anchor Terms Report

Each row includes:

  • Term – A single word extracted from all anchor texts

  • Total links – Number of backlinks where the term appears in the anchor

  • Follow links – Number of follow backlinks using that term

Clicking any number will open the Links Report, filtered to show only links using anchors that include that term.

The full report can also be exported to CSV.

How to use this report

If you're viewing your own domain

  1. Identify dominant keywords in your anchor profile

    This report highlights the most common words used across all your anchor texts. It’s useful for spotting keyword concentration and thematic focus.

  2. Detect overuse of commercial terms

    If a specific keyword appears in a large number of follow links, it might indicate over-optimization and increase SEO risk. Use this report to identify and address that early.

  3. Audit brand visibility

    See how often your brand name or variations of it appear in anchor texts. This helps evaluate brand awareness and consistency in your link profile.

  4. Discover irrelevant or spammy terms

    Unusual or off-topic terms may indicate spammy links or unrelated mentions. Use this to clean up or disavow low-quality backlinks.

If you're viewing a competitor’s domain

  1. Analyze their link-building strategy

    See what kind of anchor texts they use most.

  2. Identify overuse of commercial keywords

    This may suggest aggressive link-building that could be risky—or working.

  3. Spot branded vs non-branded anchor use

    Understand how much of their backlink profile is tied to brand awareness.

  4. Find inspiration for your own outreach

    Use common anchors as a clue to the type of content or context that gets them backlinks.


Summary

The Anchor Terms Report gives you a word-level view of your backlink anchors. It's ideal for fine-tuning your SEO strategy, avoiding over-optimization, and maintaining a natural link profile.

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