Free Internal Link Analyzer — Anchor Text Quality Checker

How to Use the Internal Link Analyzer

Why Internal Link Anchor Text Matters for SEO

Internal links do two things at once: they help users navigate your site, and they pass topical authority signals between pages. The anchor text — the clickable words of the link — tells Google what topic the linked page covers. A link with anchor text “WordPress speed optimisation guide” sends a much stronger topical signal than the same link with anchor text “click here.”

In my client audits, internal link anchor quality is one of the most consistently underdeveloped on-page signals. Most pages have internal links, but a large share of those links use generic anchors (“read more,” “this page,” “here”) that waste the opportunity to reinforce keyword relevance. For a full overview of on-page signals including internal linking, see the technical SEO audit guide.

Anchor text types and what each signals to Google:

• Keyword-Rich (3+ descriptive words): The ideal. “best wordpress security plugins 2026” tells Google exactly what the linked page covers and reinforces its topical relevance.
• Short (1-2 words): Acceptable but not optimal. “WordPress security” provides some signal but less context than a longer descriptive anchor.
• Generic (“click here”, “read more”): Passes no topical signal. Google crawls the link but learns nothing about the destination from the anchor. Replace these wherever possible.
• Naked URL (https://domain.com/page/): URL used as anchor text. Passes no keyword signal. Common in footers and automatically generated links.
• Empty: A link tag with no text content. Invisible to users, passes no anchor signal, and can confuse crawlers.

How to Classify Your Internal Link Anchors

This tool classifies your internal links automatically, but understanding the classification logic helps you interpret the results correctly and fix the right problems.

The classification rules:

• 3 or more words of descriptive content = Keyword-Rich (target for all pillar-to-spoke and spoke-to-pillar links)
• 2 words = Short (acceptable; upgrade where space allows)
• 1 word or matches a generic phrase list = Generic (replace)
• Anchor text is a URL = Naked URL (replace with descriptive text)
• No visible text content = Empty (add anchor text immediately)

The tool’s recommendation engine flags any page where fewer than 50% of internal links use keyword-rich anchors, where generic anchors appear, or where empty links are present. Use these flags as a checklist: fix empty anchors first (highest priority), then replace generic anchors, then extend short anchors where natural.

For a structured approach to auditing your entire internal link architecture, the on-page SEO checklist includes a dedicated internal linking section covering anchor diversity, orphan page identification, and pillar-spoke linking patterns.

How Many Internal Links Should Each Page Have?

There’s no fixed number, but practical guidelines based on ranking data consistently point to the same range: 3–5 internal links for supporting articles, 10–20+ for pillar pages that link to all their spoke articles.

The more important constraint is quality over quantity. Three internal links with precise, keyword-rich anchor text pointing to genuinely relevant pages are more valuable than 15 links with generic anchors to loosely related content. In a well-structured content silo, every spoke article links to the pillar and 2–3 related spokes; the pillar links to all its spokes. This creates a dense internal authority network without dilution.

Google’s crawling budget is also a consideration for larger sites. Pages with no internal links (orphan pages) may not be crawled or indexed reliably. Running this analyzer on your recently published pages is a quick check that every new page has at least the minimum internal links before you submit it to Google Search Console for indexing.

Common Internal Linking Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)

Beyond anchor text quality, these are the internal linking errors I most commonly find in client site audits:

• Only linking one direction. A spoke article links to the pillar, but the pillar doesn’t link back to the spoke. Internal PageRank flows in the direction of the link; bidirectional linking between related pages distributes authority more effectively.
• Linking to the same page multiple times with different anchors. Two links to the same URL on one page: Google typically counts only the first anchor. If you link to a page twice, make the first link the keyword-rich one.
• Over-optimised exact-match anchors. Linking to a page about “email marketing guide” with anchor text “email marketing guide” on every single internal link pointing to it looks unnatural. Vary anchors across pages: “email marketing guide,” “our guide to email marketing,” “email marketing for beginners” — all reinforce the same topic without looking manipulated.
• Linking from unrelated content. A link from a page about email marketing to a page about WordPress security is a low-relevance link that adds minimal topical signal. Internal links gain their strength from topical proximity.
• No links from high-authority pages. Your most linked-to pages (homepage, popular posts) hold the most internal authority. Make sure key commercial pages and pillar content receive links from these high-authority pages, not just from recently published articles with no inbound links of their own.

For additional technical checks alongside internal link analysis — including canonical tags, duplicate content, and redirect chains — the technical SEO checklist covers the full audit workflow. Running the Internal Link Analyzer alongside the checklist gives you a complete picture of both on-page and structural SEO health for any page.

You can also use the Google documentation on links to understand how Googlebot follows and evaluates internal links during crawling — useful context for deciding which pages to prioritise in your internal linking strategy.

Frequently Asked Questions