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JasonLax
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert

I'm glad you clicked.  You probably did so because you read a descriptive text appearing alongside the title telling you where the link was going to. 

The same thing happens when you see a hyperlinked "Click Here" on a webpage: you click because the text appearing before, after, below or above gives you an idea of where it's going - you're human so this form of analysis comes easy.  However, if you're search engine bot or crawler, things aren't so obvious at all. 

Search engine bots rely primarily on the hyperlinked text to determine what the linked content is about.  A generic click here or, even worst, link provides 0 information on where that link is going.

Why is this important?  Consider the following: there are almost a billion of these click heres indexed by Google and the results are far from exciting or even relevant:

    

Every time you insert a link with click here for descriptive text, you're missing an opportunity to enhance the visibility of the linked content because click here links are only relevant on the page itself.  By hyperlinking with descriptive text, you help search engines correctly index the linked content allowing other web users the opportunity to access your linked content from search engines in addition to wherever you posted the link in the first place.

Keep in mind that the text being of an alternate color and underlined tells readers that it's a hyperlink so you don't need to remind them about it.

I must admit that inserting a generic click here is much easier than linking a descriptive text. However, the rewards of enhanced visibility are worth the extra effort (and you'll also be sharpening your writing skills at the same time).

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