Has incoming followed links that do not use descriptive anchor text
This means that the URL in question receives incoming followed links from other internal URLs, which do not use descriptive anchor text (they instead have anchor text like 'click here', go', 'here', etc...).
Why is this important?
Internal linking is the main way you help users and search engine crawlers discover pages on your website. From an SEO perspective, internal links are the most effective method of indicating to search engines the relative importance of pages on your website.
It remains long-standing advice from Google to use descriptive anchor text, as it is "a useful signal to help search engines and users alike to better understand your content."
What does the Hint check?
This Hint will trigger for any internal URL which has incoming internal followed links that use any of the following options as anchor text:
- 'click here'
- 'click this'
- 'go'
- 'here'
- 'this'
- 'start'
- 'right here'
- 'more'
- 'learn more'
- 'read more'
Please note that this Hint currently only checks the English words above, and so may not be applicable for content written in other languages.
Why is this Hint marked 'Opportunity'?
In Sitebulb, this Hint is an Opportunity, as it represents a situation where you could optimize the site to potentially gain more search traffic.
You may be comfortable that these URLs receive enough other links with descriptive anchor text that optimizing further is not necessary.
However, you may also wish to consider taking some action on these pages. If they are important pages that 'deserve' to rank, then you may wish to further optimize the anchor text pointing at them.
Further reading
