Failure mode: every internal link using the exact same anchor

Failure mode: every internal link using the exact same anchor

Automated linking modules tend to anchor every link with the page title verbatim. Across 30k pages that's 30k identical anchors pointing in, which flattens topical signals and looks machine-generated.

Anchor-variation SOP:
— Step 1. Owner: dev. Build an anchor template set per link type (3-5 variants: name, name + modifier, contextual phrase).
— Step 2. Owner: dev. Select the variant deterministically from the source page's data so it's stable across rebuilds (no random churn).
— Step 3. Owner: SEO. Measure anchor distribution for the top 50 link targets. Gate: no single exact anchor exceeds 60 percent of inbound internal links.
— Step 4. Owner: SEO. Confirm anchors stay descriptive — variation never means vague ("click here" is a fail).

Guardrail: vary the anchor by data, keep it stable across builds, never randomize per-render.

Ship gate: don't publish until all boxes are checked.