Q: How do I fix over-optimized internal anchor text without breaking links?

Q: How do I fix over-optimized internal anchor text without breaking links?

Short answer: map your current anchors first, then diversify the ones that repeat too often — don't touch the links themselves, just the text.

— Crawl the site and export the "internal anchors" report
— Sort by target URL and look at every anchor pointing to your money pages
— Flag any where one exact-match phrase appears on 70%+ of inbound links
— Rewrite a portion of those to partial-match and natural-language variants
— Keep a few exact-match — the goal is a natural mix, not zero
— Leave navigational and breadcrumb anchors alone

In practice: internal anchors aren't as risky as external ones, but a wall of identical exact-match links looks engineered and wastes the chance to send richer relevance signals. Variety reads as natural authority.

Worried your anchors look spammy? Send a page in.