Shake Up Your Links, Already
Quote from Ashley Kreiger on February 5, 2026, 2:37 pmAnchor text diversity’s been this low-key, high-impact thing nobody brags about but also no one should ignore. Way too many folks keep jamming the same keyword in every dang link like a broken record—”best plumber in Tallahassee” ten times across ten sites? Come on. That looks spammy. Feels lazy too. Google hates lazy. I mean, not literally, but pretty much.
What works better? Real words. Natural fragments. Stuff humans would actually say or click on. Wild concept, huh? Click here, the article, Andrew said this, read more, check it out here, even just the raw URL sometimes: https://andrewlinksmith.com. Sprinkle 'em. Smash the repetition. It’s supposed to be a web, not a mono-link parade.
But people cling to exact-match anchors like they’re some kind of SEO security blanket. I get it. It worked before, or at least seemed like it did. Now? Risky, outdated, suspicious. It screams manipulation. Even worse: it’s boring. Copy-paste SEO reeks of desperation.
Like, if your content’s solid, why not let links flow in their weird little ways? Fragmented, sloppy, even vague. That randomness? Seems more real. Google’s AI isn’t stupid—it sees patterns way faster than us and flags tunnel-vision anchor shenanigans in a snap.
Also? Over-optimization kills vibe. The minute a piece of content reads like a checklist, game over. You lose the reader first, then eventually the ranking slips. You wrote for an algorithm, not a person. And the bots can tell now. It's creepy.
I’ve seen sites tank over this. Just… crumble. Had all the right links, but they were clones. Flat. Predictable. Robots trying to cosplay humans. Felt like fiberglass food. No seasoning. Would you eat a tomato every damn day, every meal, for years? No, you’d puke. Same thing with anchor text. Variety matters.
And okay, I’ll admit—it’s not sexy. “Mix up your anchor text” won’t sell a course or fill a webinar. But it keeps the strings of your link profile loose and nimble. You want your links to look like they came from everywhere, everyone. Not just some SEO intern hammering “affordable car insurance Tampa” til their fingers bleed.
Honestly, if you can’t read your own backlinks and feel a little delight, a smidge of chaos, you did something wrong. The web should be messy. People are messy. The search engines—whether they say it or not—kinda expect that.
People chase secret tactics but forget that search is less math, more language—conversation, tone, vibe, fallibility. Repeating the same keyword anchor is like shouting the punchline without telling the joke. It’s noise. Not signal.
Shake it up. Strip it down. Let some anchors be ugly or weird or long or short or random little nothings. That’s the good stuff, the stuff that doesn’t glow red on an audit report but moves needles quietly, steadily, honestly.
Keep it weird. Keep it real. Change the damn anchor.
Anchor text diversity’s been this low-key, high-impact thing nobody brags about but also no one should ignore. Way too many folks keep jamming the same keyword in every dang link like a broken record—”best plumber in Tallahassee” ten times across ten sites? Come on. That looks spammy. Feels lazy too. Google hates lazy. I mean, not literally, but pretty much.
What works better? Real words. Natural fragments. Stuff humans would actually say or click on. Wild concept, huh? Click here, the article, Andrew said this, read more, check it out here, even just the raw URL sometimes: https://andrewlinksmith.com. Sprinkle 'em. Smash the repetition. It’s supposed to be a web, not a mono-link parade.
But people cling to exact-match anchors like they’re some kind of SEO security blanket. I get it. It worked before, or at least seemed like it did. Now? Risky, outdated, suspicious. It screams manipulation. Even worse: it’s boring. Copy-paste SEO reeks of desperation.
Like, if your content’s solid, why not let links flow in their weird little ways? Fragmented, sloppy, even vague. That randomness? Seems more real. Google’s AI isn’t stupid—it sees patterns way faster than us and flags tunnel-vision anchor shenanigans in a snap.
Also? Over-optimization kills vibe. The minute a piece of content reads like a checklist, game over. You lose the reader first, then eventually the ranking slips. You wrote for an algorithm, not a person. And the bots can tell now. It's creepy.
I’ve seen sites tank over this. Just… crumble. Had all the right links, but they were clones. Flat. Predictable. Robots trying to cosplay humans. Felt like fiberglass food. No seasoning. Would you eat a tomato every damn day, every meal, for years? No, you’d puke. Same thing with anchor text. Variety matters.
And okay, I’ll admit—it’s not sexy. “Mix up your anchor text” won’t sell a course or fill a webinar. But it keeps the strings of your link profile loose and nimble. You want your links to look like they came from everywhere, everyone. Not just some SEO intern hammering “affordable car insurance Tampa” til their fingers bleed.
Honestly, if you can’t read your own backlinks and feel a little delight, a smidge of chaos, you did something wrong. The web should be messy. People are messy. The search engines—whether they say it or not—kinda expect that.
People chase secret tactics but forget that search is less math, more language—conversation, tone, vibe, fallibility. Repeating the same keyword anchor is like shouting the punchline without telling the joke. It’s noise. Not signal.
Shake it up. Strip it down. Let some anchors be ugly or weird or long or short or random little nothings. That’s the good stuff, the stuff that doesn’t glow red on an audit report but moves needles quietly, steadily, honestly.
Keep it weird. Keep it real. Change the damn anchor.