Google link best practices
Google link best practices,
as documented
Which links Google can crawl, how it reads anchor text and what it says about internal and external links, in Google's own words. Verified from Google's pages on 2026-10-07.
Google says it uses links as a signal when determining the relevancy of pages and to find new pages to crawl. This page lists what Google documents about making links crawlable and writing anchor text, with the wording taken from its page.
What Google documents
| Topic | What Google says | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Links as a signal | “Google uses links as a signal when determining the relevancy of pages and to find new pages to crawl.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| What is crawlable | “Generally, Google can only crawl your link if it's an <a> HTML element (also known as anchor element ) with an href attribute.”Google: most links in other formats won't be parsed and extracted by its crawlers. | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Script-only links | “Google can't reliably extract URLs from <a> elements that don't have an href attribute or other tags that perform as links because of script events.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Links added by JavaScript | “Links are also crawlable when you use JavaScript to insert them into a page dynamically as long as it uses the HTML markup shown above.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Resolvable URLs | “Make sure that the URL in your <a> element resolves into an actual web address (meaning, it resembles a URI) that Google crawlers can send requests to” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Anchor text | “Anchor text (also known as link text ) is the visible text of a link. This text tells people and Google something about the page you're linking to.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Empty links | “As a fallback, Google can use the title attribute as anchor text if the <a> element is for some reason empty.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Images as links | “For images as links, Google uses the alt attribute of the img element as anchor text, so be sure to add descriptive alt text to your images” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Good anchor text | “Good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to the page that it's on and to the page it links to.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| The out-of-context test | “Try reading only the anchor text (out of context) and check if it's specific enough to make sense by itself.”Google's examples of too-generic anchor text: "Click here", "Read more", "website" and "article". | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Keywords in anchors | “Write as naturally as possible, and resist the urge to cram every keyword that's related to the page that you're linking to” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Chained links | “Don't chain up links next to each other; it's harder for your readers to distinguish between links, and you lose surrounding text for each link.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Internal links | “Every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Number of links | “There's no magical ideal number of links a given page should contain.”Google: if you think it's too much, then it probably is. | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| External links | “Linking to other sites isn't something to be scared of; in fact, using external links can help establish trustworthiness (for example, citing your sources).” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| nofollow | “Use nofollow only when you don't trust the source, and not for every external link on your site.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
Examples
Links Google can parse, from Google's own examples (an anchor with an href, with or without extra attributes, and an image link with descriptive alt text).
<a href="https://example.com/ghost-peppers">ghost peppers</a>
<a href="/products/category/shoes" class="pretty">shoes</a>
<a href="/add-to-cart.html"><img src="enchiladas-in-shopping-cart.jpg" alt="add enchiladas to your cart" /></a>Formats Google says it does not recommend: it may still attempt to parse them, but they depend on script events or are not an anchor with an href.
<a routerLink="products/category">shoes</a>
<span href="https://example.com">shoes</span>
<a onclick="goto('https://example.com')">shoes</a>
<a href="https://example.com">Click here</a>Rules to remember
- Google says it can generally only crawl a link that is an a element with an href attribute.
- Google says good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant to both pages, and that images used as links need descriptive alt text.
- Google says every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site.
Questions
What makes a link crawlable for Google?
Google says it can generally only crawl a link that is an a element with an href attribute, and that most links in other formats won't be parsed and extracted. Links inserted with JavaScript are crawlable as long as they use that same markup.
Does Google use anchor text?
Yes. Google says anchor text tells people and Google something about the page you're linking to. If the link is an image, Google uses the img element's alt attribute as the anchor text.
What is bad anchor text?
Google calls generic text such as "Click here" or "Read more" too generic, and very long anchors weirdly long. It suggests reading only the anchor text, out of context, and checking that it is specific enough to make sense by itself.
How many links should a page have?
Google says there is no magical ideal number of links a given page should contain, and that if you think it is too much, it probably is.
Should every page have an internal link?
Google says every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site, and that internal links with good anchor text help both people and Google make sense of your site.
Should I use nofollow on external links?
Google says to use nofollow only when you don't trust the source, and not for every external link on your site. It also says linking to other sites isn't something to be scared of and can help establish trustworthiness, for example by citing your sources.
Can I put several links right next to each other?
Google says not to chain up links next to each other: it's harder for readers to distinguish between links, and you lose the surrounding text for each link.
How current is this page?
Every row was read from Google's page on 2026-10-07, which showed "Last updated 2025-12-10 UTC". Google can change its documentation, so treat the linked page as the final word.
Sources
- Link best practices for Google (Google Search Central), read on 2026-10-07
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