This free anchor text ratio checker tells you, in about ten seconds, whether the backlinks pointing at a page look earned or look built. Paste the anchor column from Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz or Search Console, add the keyword the page targets and your brand name, and you get the branded, naked URL, generic, partial match and exact match split, a risk score, and the exact number of “safe” links you need before adding another keyword anchor. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Results appear here. Nothing you paste leaves your browser; the whole check runs locally.
Why I built an anchor text ratio checker
I have been building links for clients since 2019, and the most common reason a page stalls after a link campaign is not link quality. It is the anchor text ratio. Someone buys fifteen guest posts, every one of them uses “best CRM for startups” as the anchor, and the page drops instead of climbing. The links were fine. The pattern was not.
Every tool I used for this was either a spreadsheet I kept rebuilding or a paid dashboard that showed anchors but never told me what to do next. So I built the version I wanted: paste, classify, get a number, get told what the next ten links should look like.
How to use the anchor text ratio checker
- Export your anchors. In Ahrefs Site Explorer open the Anchors report for the exact URL (not the whole domain) and copy the anchor column with the referring domain count. In Search Console use Links, then Top linking text. Semrush and Moz both have an anchor report too.
- Paste them in the box, one anchor per line. If you paste a count after a tab or a comma, the tool uses it as a multiplier so 200 rows of the same anchor count as 200 links.
- Add the target keyword the page is trying to rank for. Add close variants separated by commas. Without this the checker cannot tell exact match from partial match.
- Add your brand name and the short forms people actually use. Include your domain so bare URLs written without http still count as naked URL anchors.
- Pick the page type. Homepages, money pages and blog posts have very different safe ranges. Then click the button.
How anchors are classified
| Type | Example for a page targeting “link building services” | What it signals |
|---|---|---|
| Branded | Hamza Ali Siddiqui, HAS | Someone referenced you as a source. The safest anchor there is. |
| Brand + keyword | Hamza Ali Siddiqui link building | Counted with branded. Natural when people describe what you do. |
| Naked URL | hamzaalisiddiqui.com, https://hamzaalisiddiqui.com/ | Common in citations and directories. Fully safe. |
| Generic | click here, this guide, read more | Editorial links use these constantly. Cheap dilution. |
| Partial match | affordable link building services for SaaS | Passes keyword relevance without repeating the exact phrase. |
| Exact match | link building services | Strongest signal and the first thing a spam filter counts. |
| Other / natural | this SEO consultant, the 2026 playbook | Everything that does not fit the above. Usually fine. |
Classification is deterministic, so if a row looks wrong you can see exactly why in the per-anchor table and fix your keyword or brand inputs. Anchors that share a third or more of their meaningful words with your keyword are treated as partial match, which is how Google seems to treat them too.
Safe anchor text ratio benchmarks
These are the ranges the checker uses. They come from anchor profiles of pages that rank and stay ranked, not from a formula, and they are deliberately conservative. Google does not publish a number; its link spam policy only says that links “intended to manipulate rankings” are a problem, and an unnatural anchor ratio is the clearest fingerprint of that intent.
| Anchor type | Homepage | Inner / money page | Blog post |
|---|---|---|---|
| Branded (incl. brand + keyword) | 60–75% | 35–50% | 25–40% |
| Naked URL | 10–20% | 10–20% | 10–20% |
| Generic | 5–15% | 8–15% | 8–15% |
| Partial match | 3–8% | 12–20% | 15–25% |
| Exact match | 0–2% | 3–8% | 5–10% |
| Other / natural | 0–10% | 5–12% | 8–18% |
Blog posts can carry more keyword anchors because people often link to an article using its title, and titles contain keywords. Homepages almost never earn exact match anchors naturally, which is why one or two can already look off. If you want the long version of why these ranges exist, Moz’s piece on anchor text distribution is still the best explanation I have read.
What to do when the anchor text ratio is over-optimized
Do not remove links. Disavowing good links because the anchor is aggressive throws away authority you paid for. The fix is dilution: add links with branded, URL and generic anchors until the ratio falls back inside the range. The checker tells you how many that is. For a page with 40 links and 8 exact match anchors on a money page, that is roughly 60 more non-keyword links, which sounds like a lot until you realize that unlinked brand mentions and link insertions with a branded anchor are the cheapest links you will ever build.
If you are planning a campaign rather than fixing one, run the checker on the top three ranking pages for your keyword first. Their ratios are what “normal” looks like in that SERP, and matching them is safer than following any generic benchmark. That is the same logic I use in backlink gap analysis, just applied to anchors instead of domains.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good anchor text ratio?
For a typical money page: roughly 35 to 50 percent branded, 10 to 20 percent naked URL, 8 to 15 percent generic, 12 to 20 percent partial match, and 3 to 8 percent exact match. Homepages should sit far heavier on branded anchors, blog posts can carry a few more keyword anchors because people link to titles.
Does Google penalize exact match anchor text?
Not exact match anchors by themselves. Google’s spam policies target links built to manipulate rankings, and a page where most anchors repeat the same commercial keyword is the easiest version of that to detect. A handful of exact match anchors on a page with a natural spread is normal.
Where do I get my anchor text list?
Ahrefs Site Explorer (Anchors report, filtered to the exact URL), Semrush Backlink Analytics (Anchors tab), Moz Link Explorer (Anchor Text), or Google Search Console under Links, then Top linking text. The checker accepts any of them pasted as plain text.
Is my data stored anywhere?
No. The anchor text ratio checker runs entirely in your browser with plain JavaScript. There is no server call, no account and no log of what you paste.
Should I check the domain or a single page?
Single pages. Over-optimization is judged per URL, and a domain-wide export blends a heavily linked homepage with every blog post, which hides the problem page. Export anchors for the exact URL you are worried about.
If the checker shows a problem and you would rather have someone fix the profile than learn dilution math, that is most of what my link building services work looks like day to day.