Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Save 36% now!
      Moz Pro

      Save 36% now!

      Sign up
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      Save 36% now!
      Moz Pro

      Save 36% now!

      Sign up
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
      Moz API

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. Anchor text with punctuation

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Anchor text with punctuation

    Technical SEO
    2
    2
    741
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • wearehappymedia
      wearehappymedia last edited by

      Hey Moz

      Does anchor text with punctuation effect anything, does google even read it?

      I know matching exact anchor text to high volume keywords doesn't matter as much any more - but it still definitely makes a different as our reports show.

      Thanks

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Tymen
        Tymen last edited by

        Hi Radi,

        I would get rid of all punctuation except for "-" as it is seen as a space. If you use othe punctuations they are ignored. When added in a query the results are without the punctuation. Same goes for Bing.

        More info:

        https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?rd=1#exceptions_punctuations

        Makes it easier for you I hope 🙂

        Grt Tymen

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • 1 / 1
        • First post
          Last post

        Got a burning SEO question?

        Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


        Start my free trial


        Browse Questions

        Explore more categories

        • Moz Tools

          Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

        • SEO Tactics

          Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

        • Community

          Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

        • Digital Marketing

          Chat about tactics outside of SEO

        • Research & Trends

          Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

        • Support

          Connect on product support and feature requests.

        • See all categories

        Related Questions

        • bendyman

          Problem with Yoast not seeing any of this website's text/content

          Hi, My client has a new WordPress site http://www.londonavsolutions.co.uk/ and they have installed the Yoast Premium SEO plug-in. They are having issues with getting the lights to go green and the main problem is that on most pages Yoast does not see any words/content – although there are plenty of words on the pages. Other tools can see the words, however Yoast is struggling to find any and gives the following message:- Bad SEO score. The text contains 0 words. This is far below the recommended minimum of 300 words. Add more content that is relevant for the topic. Readability - You have far too little content. Please add some content to enable a good analysis. They have contacted the website developer who says that there is nothing wrong, but they are frustrated that they cannot use the Yoast tools themselves because of this issue, plus Yoast are offering no support with the issue. I hope that one of you guys has seen this problem before, or can spot a problem with the way the site has been built and can perhaps shed some light on the problem. I didn't build the site myself so won't be offended if you spot problems with it. Thanks in advance, Ben

          Technical SEO | | bendyman
          0
        • Trevorneo

          What punctuation can you use in meta tags? Are there any Google does not like?

          So I know you can use dashes and | in meta tags, but can anyone tell me what other punctuation you can use? Also, it'd be great to know what punctuation you can't use. Thanks!

          Technical SEO | | Trevorneo
          1
        • WillW

          ADA, WCAG, Section 508 Accessibility and hidden text

          I am working on fixing accessibility issues on client's site, and they have contracted with a vendor who provides both tools to monitor the site and consulting to help us fix issues that are found. When there are spatial relationships between elements on a page that would be not be evident to someone listening via a screen reader, a strategy that they recommended to us to is to add text helpers that are not visible, but still read by the screen readers. An example: Directions to our Fifth Avenue Store I have seen this technique used on a major brand site but I am concerned that their brand strength insulates them from a hidden text penalty far more than my client's brand would. Also, their implementation uses class names like "ada_hidden" which may help search engines understand the intent, or may not at all. I am looking for opinions regarding the use of this technique. Normally I wouldn't use it for risk of penalty, but here the intent is to improve the user experience of the pages. Anyone used similar techniques for ADA/WCAG, or solved the problem in a more SEO-friendly way? Thanks, Will

          Technical SEO | | WillW
          0
        • CharmingGuy

          How to block text on a page to be indexed?

          I would like to block the spider indexing a block of text inside a page , however I do not want to block the whole page with, for example , a noindex tag. I have tried already with a tag like this : chocolate pudding chocolate pudding However this is not working for my case, a travel related website. thanks in advance for your support. Best regards Gianluca

          Technical SEO | | CharmingGuy
          0
        • mtthompsons

          Find all links in the site and anchor text

          Hi, Find all links in the site and anchor text and i need this done on my own website so i know if we dont have links that are anchored to numbers and punctuations that are not seen at all. Thanks

          Technical SEO | | mtthompsons
          0
        • Circa

          Someone is building anchor text links with child porn keywords..help :-(

          Hey Everyone; I recently found that there are tons of links to my url (30+) from several sites with the anchor text "download child porn, kiddie porn, and the likes". Although the sites linking to us where the person built the links do not have this content (thank god) it is just my url + the horrible anchor text someone is putting. [added image] Obviously I would not do that to my own site especially since I was ranked for over 15 keywords in the top 5 spots on Google and Bing. I am guessing its a competitor and I am wondering that is there any way I can remove them? Is this negative seo? Also could this be the reason my site has dropped off google page 1 last month for all my positions? I am consistently trying to rebuild but my positions are flying all over the place. Im going from ranking #12 one week to #198 the next; then to #60 and finally not even on google or bing anymore; then back to #50, etc for the past month and a half... Its very aggravating and it has hurt a few of my websites; im at a total loss on how to recover now if this is the case...It seems they have started to build these links in January from what I can find on the postings.. Thank you SEOMOZ im so happy im a member now. Any suggestions on how i can get these links off or if it is why my site has lost its original rankings.. Should I just can my website and start all over with a different URL? How can I watch out for this in the future? Any help would be so so so greatly appreciated and valued 🙂 xpVjMw8

          Technical SEO | | Circa
          0
        • inc.com

          Is it bad (black hat) to have an H1 text as a text indent?

          Is it bad practice to use a text indent through CSS for H1 text on a homepage(basically hiding h1 text)? I'm just trying to compensate for the fact that some text that should really be in the h1 tag is actually an image.

          Technical SEO | | inc.com
          1
        • PlusPort

          Text in div

          When you use text in a div like this: <div id="container"> <h1 id="doc-header">Your Business in your Location - Your Services</h1> <p>Top industries are getting hit.p> <div id="branding"> <a href="#"> <img id="logo" src="images/logo.png" alt="Your Site" /> </a> </div> Are there SEO consequences when you put text in divs?

          Technical SEO | | PlusPort
          0

        Get started with Moz Pro!

        Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

        Start my free trial
        Products
        • Moz Pro
        • Moz Local
        • Moz API
        • Moz Data
        • STAT
        • Product Updates
        Moz Solutions
        • SMB Solutions
        • Agency Solutions
        • Enterprise Solutions
        • Digital Marketers
        Free SEO Tools
        • Domain Authority Checker
        • Link Explorer
        • Keyword Explorer
        • Competitive Research
        • Brand Authority Checker
        • Local Citation Checker
        • MozBar Extension
        • MozCast
        Resources
        • Blog
        • SEO Learning Center
        • Help Hub
        • Beginner's Guide to SEO
        • How-to Guides
        • Moz Academy
        • API Docs
        About Moz
        • About
        • Team
        • Careers
        • Contact
        Why Moz
        • Case Studies
        • Testimonials
        Get Involved
        • Become an Affiliate
        • MozCon
        • Webinars
        • Practical Marketer Series
        • MozPod
        Connect with us

        Contact the Help team

        Join our newsletter
        Moz logo
        © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
        • Accessibility
        • Terms of Use
        • Privacy

        Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.