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Light Dark Use Device Settings Advertise Contact Us Home / Google News / Google SEO / Google Still Recommends You Focus On Visible Anchor Text For Links Google Still Recommends You Focus On Visible Anchor Text For Links Feb 13, 2026 - 7:31 am 1 — by Barry SchwartzBarry Schwartz / Executive Editor
Barry Schwartz is the CEO of RustyBrick and a technologist, a New York Web service firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales. Barry is also the founder of the Search Engine Roundtable and the News Editor of Search Engine Land. He is well known & respected for his expertise in the search marketing industry. He only provides consulting services to expert SEOs and also performs search marketing expert witness services. Barry graduated from the City University of New York and lives with his family in the NYC region. You can follow Barry on Twitter at @rustybrick or on LinkedIn and read his full bio over here. 38,055 Articles as barry.schwartz Filed Under Google Search Engine Optimization
Google's John Mueller said he still recommends you have visible anchor text for your links in order to "provide more context for search engines." Don't just use title elements in the link attribute; make sure the link has actual visible anchor text.
John said this on Bluesky in response to this question:
Link Context question: A long time ago in a galaxy not so far, far away when indexing Google used anchor + title to understand the context of a hyperlink (I.e. what a user should expect on the other end). Would it be fair to say that aria-label has replaced the title attribute?Asking due to 1) mobile browsers not supporting title attribute, 2) mobile first indexing and 3) aria-label being an a11y equivalent.
John replied:
I'd focus on the visible anchor text, if you want to provide more context for search engines. Make it obvious to everyone what the linked page is for.
Make things obvious, is somewhat obvious. And yea, this is not new, but it has been a while since I heard and covered a link specific question in SEO.
Forum discussion at Bluesky.
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