controversial but: we made internal anchors LESS natural and rankings jumped 3 positions.

controversial but: we made internal anchors LESS natural and rankings jumped 3 positions.

Everyone parrots 'use natural internal anchors, click here is fine.' A B2B blog took that gospel literally — 60% of internal links to their pillar pages said 'read more', 'this guide', or the bare URL.

We rewrote 340 internal anchors to descriptive, keyword-rich phrases. Not spammy exact-match — but 'enterprise email deliverability checklist' instead of 'learn more.'

Target pages climbed an average of 3.1 positions for their primary terms in 6 weeks. One pillar went from position 11 to 4.

Google's own internal-link patents weight anchor text. You'd never use 'click here' to an external site you're trying to rank — so why do it internally?

Fight me on this: 'click here' is a wasted ranking signal.