Anchor text
Also called Link text.
The words the link is wrapped in — the part of a link a publisher can change without touching the URL.
Anchor text is the visible text of a link, and it is the half of the deal most likely to drift. The URL is easy to check and rarely wrong; the anchor is retyped by whoever writes the article, so "best CRM for agencies" becomes "this tool" and the reason the link was bought is gone while the link is still there.
Publishers cap what they will accept for good reasons: a page stuffed with exact-match commercial anchors reads as paid to a person and to a classifier. Most listings state an anchor policy — anything, branded only, or the publisher writes it — and a buyer who ignores it is asking for a placement that gets rewritten later.
Agree the anchor before the article is written, in the order, not in an email thread. That is what makes "the anchor as agreed" a checkable claim rather than a memory.
How LinkBourse handles it
The anchor is part of the order and is read back on the live page every night. A link published under a different anchor is not what was sold, and settlement says so.
Read the anchor on any live pageTerms it depends on
- Dofollow link
- A link that passes ranking signals, as opposed to one marked so that search engines ignore it for ranking.
- Retention period
- How long the publisher commits to keep a placement live after the paid window ends.
- Escrow
- Money held by a third party from the moment a campaign is booked until the agreed work is confirmed delivered.