Google Hack: Using inanchor

October 18, 2007

This is a little Google hack to use in your Google search inanchor. Many people still don’t use this type of advanced search and would like to point out the benefits and how to use this little keyword.

inanchor:

If you include inanchor: in your query, Google will restrict the results to pages containing the query terms you specify in the anchor text or links to the page. For example, [ restaurants inanchor:gourmet ] will return pages in which the anchor text on links to the pages contain the word “gourmet” and the page contains the word “restaurants”.

Example:

3 search queries

inanchor:blue widget

inanchor:”blue widget”

inanchor:blue inanchor:widget

This is how I read the 3 formats.

inanchor:blue widget - Searches for “blue” with the serp results only containing results that have the word “widget” in their anchor text.

inanchor:”blue widget” - Searches for pages that have the exact anchor text of “blue widget”. “blue widget companies” would not qualify as a matching anchor text.

inanchor:blue inanchor:widget - Searches for pages that have anchor text that include both words “blue” & “widget”. “blue widget company” & “blue modifier widget” would all qualify to be returned as a result.