Anchor text — the clickable words in a link — tells search engines what the linked page is about. Generic "click here" links, missing anchor text, and using the same phrase everywhere all waste that signal. Here's how to link with intent.
When you link to a page, the words you use describe it to search engines. Descriptive anchor text helps the target page rank for the right terms; vague anchor text throws that opportunity away.
Internal anchor text is one of the few ranking levers entirely under your control — you decide the words. A link reading "broken link checker" reinforces that the target is about broken-link checking; a link reading "click here" reinforces nothing. Across hundreds of internal links, this adds up to a clear or a muddy signal about what each page is for. The checks below cover the three ways anchor text goes wrong.
Each wastes the topical signal a link could be sending.
Some links have no readable text at all — an image-only link with no alt text, or a bare icon. Search engines (and screen readers) get nothing to describe the destination. The audit flags links with no anchor text, including bare URL links such as raw DOIs or citation links. The fix is to give every meaningful link descriptive text, or for image links, descriptive alt text.
"Click here", "read more", "this page", "learn more" — these describe the action, not the destination. They pass no topical signal and hurt accessibility. Replace them with anchor text that names what the linked page is about. You don't need to be robotic about it; natural, descriptive phrasing in the flow of a sentence works best.
If every internal link to a page uses the identical exact-match phrase, the profile looks unnatural and limits the range of terms the page is associated with. The audit flags low anchor-text diversity to a target. The fix is to vary how you link: the primary term, close variations, and natural contextual phrases — the way a human writer naturally would across different articles.
A few habits that make your internal link graph work harder.
Describe the destination, not the action. The anchor should tell a reader (and a crawler) where they'll land. Link from relevant context. An in-content link from a topically related paragraph carries more weight than a generic footer or sidebar link. Point authority where you want it. Link to your most important pages more often, and from your strongest pages, to concentrate ranking authority on the URLs you most want to rank. Vary the phrasing naturally. Don't force the same exact-match keyword every time; mix in variations. And connect related pages so no important page is left an orphan.
Both matter, but internal anchor text is the one you fully control. You can't dictate how other sites link to you, but you decide every internal anchor — so it's a reliable, low-effort lever for telling search engines what your pages are about.
For internal links, exact-match anchors are generally fine and useful, but using the identical keyword for every single link to a page looks unnatural and limits topical range. Natural variety is safer and more effective. The bigger risk of over-optimisation is with manipulative external link building, not sensible internal linking.
They're useful for structure and discovery but carry less topical weight than contextual in-content links, and using the same site-wide anchor everywhere contributes to low diversity. Treat in-content links as your primary tool for passing topical signals and authority.
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