Do your internal links say what they point at?
The text of a link tells a crawler what the destination is about. "Click here" tells it nothing, and one phrase pointing at several pages tells it the wrong thing. This reads your internal link text from outside your network.
Reads the internal links on a set of your pages and the text of each. Saved to your account if you are signed in to a paid plan.
How this check works
Shipwork crawls a set of your pages, extracts every internal link with its text, and reports generic text ("click here", "read more"), links with no text, and phrases that point at several different pages: the three ways internal link text stops helping a crawler.
What the internal anchor text checker reads
The internal anchor text checker reads the link tags on the pages it fetches during a bounded crawl, up to 20 pages in a free run and up to 300 internal links per page. For each same-site link it captures the visible link text, falling back to an aria-label or an image alt value when the anchor has no words of its own. It skips anchor tags hidden from assistive technology and links to mail, telephone or script targets.
It then counts four things: links with no text at all, links whose text is one of a fixed set of weak phrases such as 'click here', 'read more' and 'view', phrases used for several different destinations, and the most frequently used link text on the pages it read. It does not check external link text, and it does not read field data or Search Console.
How to read an anchor text result
A clean result means that, across the pages the crawl read, every internal link had text, none used one of the weak phrases, and no phrase pointed at more than one destination. That is reassuring for the sample, not a site-wide guarantee: the crawl reads a bounded set of pages, and a template link on an unread page can still be vague.
A finding is a shortlist, not a verdict. The checker cannot judge whether a descriptive phrase is accurate, only whether it is generic or reused. It also cannot prove how much weight any search engine places on link text. Treat the report as a starting point, then read the links in context on the live page.
Common causes and why they matter
Weak link text usually comes from templates rather than authors. Theme buttons say 'read more', pagination says 'next', and card components wrap a whole product tile in an image link with no text. Bulk imports and page builders repeat the same call to action across a category, so one phrase ends up pointing at many pages.
The cost is paid by both users and machines. A screen-reader user who browses by link hears every item announced as 'read more', and a reader skimming a page learns nothing about where a link goes. A crawler uses link text as one clue about the destination topic, so a vague phrase gives it nothing to work with.
How to fix generic and conflicting anchor text
Start with the reported page and find the surrounding context. Replace 'click here' with a short phrase that names the destination, such as 'see the returns policy'. For an icon or image link, add real text or a concise alt value so the anchor has a subject. Where the same phrase points at several pages, give each destination its own wording.
Fix the template, not only the example. In most themes and page builders the link text lives in a menu label, a button component or a block setting, so one change corrects every page it renders. On a store, check the product card component and the collection pagination controls, which are the usual sources. Re-run the check afterwards to confirm the counts fall.
When to use related checks
Use the anchor text check when the question is what your internal links say. Use link graph to see whether pages are reachable at all and how deep they sit, and broken links to find internal links that return an error instead of a page.
If you are repairing links after a redesign or migration, pair these with the internal link fix guide. Anchor text, reachability and broken destinations are three separate problems, and each has its own check, so run the one that matches the question rather than reading all three as the same finding.
Questions
Does anchor text still matter?
Why is "click here" bad?
What is a conflicting anchor?
How do I check anchor text on my website?
Does anchor text still matter for SEO?
Why is 'click here' bad for accessibility?
What is a conflicting anchor text problem?
Does the anchor text checker test external links?
Keep reading
What this reads
- Reads public pages from outside your network, the way a crawler does.
- No signup, and nothing is stored on the free checks.
- One of 83 checks across discovery, content, markup, trust and catalogue data.
Cool, just ran an audit and got some insights! Let’s see if I can fix them :)
Whoah! this site is crazy, nothing to roast at all
cool as heck, tried it on my blog and the insights it gave are helpful and not bluff.