Generic link text on internal links
What it is
One or more links from this page to other pages on your site use generic text such as “Read more”, “Click here” or “Learn more”. The words say that something is a link, not what is behind it.
Why it matters
Google lists “Click here” and “Read more” as anchor text that is too generic, and uses link text to understand the page it points to. A page your site links to mostly with “Read more” gets no description from you. Screen reader users who jump through a page’s links hear a row of identical entries; WCAG 2.4.4 asks that a link’s purpose be clear from its text or context.
How Asky checks it
Asky reads the page’s links from its raw HTML; JavaScript links are not seen. A link to the page’s own host is reported when its whole text, trimmed and ignoring case, is one of: click here, click, here, this, link, go, more, more info, more details, details, learn more, read more, see more, find out more, continue. Longer text (“Read more about pricing”), added punctuation, arrows or line breaks, and other languages are not reported. Image-only links and links to the page itself are not checked. It runs in full-site and selected-page audits with Link analysis on that reached every page without blocks or errors; error pages are skipped.
Reported as an opportunity with low severity.
How to fix it
- Rewrite the text to name the destination: “read the pricing guide” or “compare plans” instead of “click here”.
- On card and post-list templates where every item ends in “Read more”, link the item’s title instead, or extend the button text with the title in a visually hidden span. The whole text then describes the page.
- Change it in the template or theme setting when the phrase comes from there, so every page is fixed at once.
- Do not simply delete the text: a link with no text is reported as an internal link with no link text.
- Keep it short and natural. Stuffing keywords into link text breaks Google’s spam policies.
Example
A post list on https://example.com/blog ends each item with a generic button. Adding the post title makes each link say where it goes:
<!-- Before -->
<a href="/blog/pricing-guide">Read more</a>
<!-- After -->
<a href="/blog/pricing-guide">Read more<span class="visually-hidden"> about SaaS pricing</span></a>