What is the purpose of cell anchoring in Excel?

Cell anchoring in Excel is an important feature that allows users to create formulas that maintain consistent references to specific cells. When you anchor a cell reference in a formula, you are essentially locking the reference so that it does not change when the formula is copied or moved to another location in the spreadsheet. This is particularly useful when you want to reference a constant value, such as a tax rate, or when you want to keep a certain row or column fixed while performing calculations in other parts of your worksheet.

For example, if you have a formula that calculates prices based on a fixed tax rate located in one cell, anchoring that cell reference ensures that every time you copy the formula to apply it to different rows or columns, the reference to the tax rate remains the same. This avoids errors that could occur from inadvertently adjusting references that should remain constant, thereby maintaining the integrity of your calculations.

The other choices address different functionalities in Excel but do not relate to the concept of cell anchoring. Creating hyperlinks, color-coding cells, and removing unnecessary cells pertain to different tasks within the Excel environment and do not influence how cell references behave in formulas during copying or moving.