Naked Link

A naked link is a hyperlink where the anchor text is the full URL of the destination page (e.g., "https://example.com/page") rather than a descriptive word or keyword. Naked links are considered a natural component of a healthy anchor text profile because they reflect organic citations where the linker simply pastes the URL rather than crafting custom anchor text.

Naked link proportions within a backlink profile are measured using Ahrefs' Anchors report and SEMrush's Backlink Analytics anchor text breakdown. A balanced backlink profile containing a mix of branded, naked, exact match, and generic anchors is less likely to trigger algorithmic penalties.