What is the difference between anchor text and external links?

[MissThumann]

I understand you 'Pro's' may fins this a silly question. But I'm a visual learner and I can't seem to grasp this.

I've read the pages MOZ has provided on anchor text and external links and my question is, how are they different? And which one is more important to seo?  Can someone who has a great ability to simplify things, please help me understand this. They seem very similar to me but, I know there has to be more to it.

External links: External Links are hyperlinks that point at (target) any domain other than the domain the link exists on (source)

**Anchor Text: **Anchor text is the visible characters and words that hyperlinks display when linking to another document or location on the web.

Thanks is advance, Lauren.

[MattRoney]

Hahaha, yeah, not my personal choice of reading material, either.

[MissThumann]

That helps me a lot, I get why I would use the word 'Study', because it does look like i'm sending them to an insurance home page. Which isn't as interesting as a study ( Or at least as interesting as an insurance study can be.. ) Yawn.

[MattRoney]

When I say "put the link around" I mean "use these words as anchor text," if that wasn't clear from context.

[MattRoney]

Oh! Sorry, I was looking at the wrong link. Yeah, that looks fine. Personally, my preference would be to put the link around the words "a study" or "a study by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners," because only having the link around "National Association of Insurance Commissioners" may lead readers to think the link goes to the NAIC homepage rather than the study. What you've done, though, is entirely acceptable.

[MissThumann]

Sorry, I didn't explain that well. The anchor text I created takes you to another domain: http://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/homeowners-and-renters-insurance from my domain.

Here's the text from the blog, with the anchor text in it:

According to a study by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), the average homeowner’s insurance premium rose by 6.0 percent in 2013, following a 5.7 percent rise in 2012. The average renter’s insurance premium was unchanged in 2012, after rising 1.1 percent the previous year.

Here's the url to the blog: http://thumannagency.com/blog/05-05-2016/3778

Sorry if i'm not saying this correctly...

[MattRoney]

Sure. That's one entirely legitimate way to do it. If it were me, though, I'd do something along the lines of:

The Thumann Agency has been proudly serving families and businesses in Dallas for over 20 years.

In HTML, that would look like:

The Thumann Agency has been proudly serving families and businesses in Dallas for over 20 years.

That said, neither may actually be necessary. Since it's a blog post on your own site, the site's own navigation makes it pretty easy to find your homepage.

[MissThumann]

Would you be so kind as to tell me if I've done this correctly, this is my first attempt at using anchor text in my blog.

Any helpful criticism would be greatly appreciated.

http://thumannagency.com/blog/05-05-2016/3778 The link is down towards the bottom of the page.

[MattRoney]

Well, this is the place for 'em. Feel free to post a thread whenever you need to! Welcome to the Moz community. ^_^

(One tip: If a response answers your question, click the "Good Answer" link in the lower-right. It marks your question as "answered," and it gives the responder a few extra MozPoints. I work here, so I'm not too concerned, but it's a good thing to do.)

[MissThumann]

Hallelujah!!!! Thank you for that. A good teacher is one that knows how to simplify and now, without a doubt, I can say I understand it.

I may have a few more questions for you now..

[MattRoney]

Hi there, Lauren!

An external link is one typeof hyperlink—specifically, a hyperlink that links from one domain to another. The opposite is an internal link, which links from one page on a domain to another page on that same domain. A link from moz.com to inbound.org is an external link because moz.com and inbound.org are different domains, but a link from moz.com/community/q to moz.com/community/q/what-is-the-difference-between-anchor-text-and-external-links is internal because they're both on the domain moz.com.

Anchor text is a component of all text links, whether they're internal or external. In a traditional hyperlink that appears on the page as a bit of underlined blue text, the anchor text is that blue text itself.

This is an internal link to moz.com/community/q. The destination URL is moz.com/community/q, and the anchor text is "This is an internal link to moz.com/community/q." It's internal because both the page we're currently on and the page the link points to are on the domain moz.com. Here's another link to moz.com/community/q: The Moz Q&A Forum. It has the same destination URL as the previous link, but the anchor text—"The Moz Q&A Forum"—is different.

Does that clear things up at all?