Anchor text is the clickable part of a link, and Google reads it as a description of the destination page. Descriptive anchors that vary naturally strengthen your internal linking. The same exact-match phrase repeated everywhere is a pattern Google's link spam policies describe by name, so write anchors the way you would say them out loud.
What Google reads into an anchor
An anchor is a label that one page pins on another. When twelve of your guides link to /flower/indica/ with wording about indica flower, Google collects twelve small confirmations of what that page covers, and those signals help decide which of your URLs owns the term. Readers use the same words to decide whether to click. A label that misdescribes its destination costs you both ways.
Where exact-match anchors cross the line
Google's link spam policy calls out keyword-rich anchors as a marker of manipulative linking, and anchor patterns were a core input to the Penguin systems that now run inside the main algorithm. The risk is highest in bought or traded external links, but the pattern reads the same inside your site. If every link to your cart category says buy THC carts online in those exact words, the repetition looks engineered, because it is. No writer lands on one phrase that precisely by accident.
Descriptive first, varied second
Vague anchors waste the slot. Click here and read more describe nothing, and Google's own SEO starter guide says to avoid them. Describe the destination plainly, then rotate the phrasing across pages. Five links to one strain-lineage page might read:
- our Gelato 41 lineage breakdown
- how Gelato 41 was bred
- Gelato 41's parent strains
- the full Gelato 41 family tree
- this cross of Sunset Sherbet and Thin Mint GSC
All five describe the same page. None repeat. That spread is what unforced writing produces anyway, which is exactly why it reads as safe.
Audit what you already have
Search Console's Links report lists the most common anchors in links pointing at your site, which surfaces external problems like a spam pattern left over from old directory submissions. For internal anchors, crawl the site with Screaming Frog and export every link with its anchor text. One sort of that sheet shows the damage: four hundred read more anchors, or a single commercial phrase carrying an entire category. Fix the templates first; widgets and footers generate repeated anchors at a scale hand-written links never will.
A worked example
A dispensary client's blog template ended every post with the same related-products widget, and the widget's link read buy cannabis flower online. Roughly 340 posts, 340 identical commercial anchors aimed at one category page. We rewrote the template to rotate three plain descriptions — shop the flower menu, current flower drops, indica and sativa flower in stock — and kept the commercial phrasing in exactly one place, the homepage. The category page held its rankings through the change, the site shed its most obvious spam pattern, and later content refreshes started showing movement faster than earlier ones had. Cheap insurance, one template edit.
Frequently asked questions
Are click-here anchors actually harmful?
Harmful overstates it; wasteful is accurate. The anchor is a relevance signal, and click here spends it describing nothing. Screen readers also announce links out of context, so descriptive anchors double as an accessibility fix.
Is exact-match anchor text ever fine?
Yes, in moderation. When the natural way to reference a page is its target phrase, use the phrase. The problem is uniformity — one phrase carrying most of the links to a page — not any single use of it.
Do navigation menus need varied anchors?
No. Nav and breadcrumb anchors repeat sitewide by design, and Google treats boilerplate links differently from editorial ones. Spend the variety in body copy, where identical repetition would never occur on its own.
Does anchor text apply to image links?
Yes. When an image is the link, its alt text acts as the anchor, which is one more reason product and banner images need descriptive alt attributes.
Can bad anchors on sites I do not control hurt me?
A scatter of spammy anchors from random external sites is normal and Google mostly ignores it. A large paid-link pattern is different; that is disavow territory, and a separate project from internal anchor work.
Key takeaways
- Anchors tell Google what the destination page covers; descriptive beats clever every time.
- Keyword-rich anchors repeated at scale are named in Google's link spam policy, so vary the phrasing.
- Internal links are fully in your control; audit them with a Screaming Frog crawl and the Search Console Links report.
- Templates and widgets create repeated-anchor patterns at scale, so fix those before touching individual links.
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