Can keyword in onpage links be seen as spam?

[Koenseo]

My seo strategy relies heavily on a lot of great relevant content on the domain. To achieve this, I have a section with 'information docs' on each product page. They are lists with links to informational pages relevant to the product.

For instance;

domain.com/apples/

On this product page there are 30 links to articles;

domain.com/apples/how-to-store/
domain.com/apples?recipes/

etc.

The anchor texts of these links are the titles of these articles, so on the product page the list of links looks like this:

How to store apples
Recipes with apples

etc.

Question: Are those keywords in the links (apples) counted as onpage keyword usage an can it be seen as keyword stuffing by Google?

Thanks a lot.

[irvingw]

yes,it can be considered spammy  especially if you have tons of navigation links/anchor text all with apple in them.

You can add some but I would remove them in places that don't make sense for the reader.

How to Store

Recipies

[UnderRugSwept]

It's the sheer volume of them that is the main problem. Is there a way (that makes sense) to not have them all listed on the same page?

[Koenseo]

The page with the most info docs contains 55 links to those info docs, 38 of them have the keyword in the anchor.

I wouldn't know how to list them elsewhere, while still letting them support the product page.. Maybe I'll have to try to remove the keyword out most of the anchors, as mr. Weiss suggests..

[UnderRugSwept]

Isn't it so frustrating how we say not to design for search engines, but for users instead; but when we are doing something that makes the most sense from the user's perspective but it's potentially something Google wouldn't like, we have to change it? It's completely ridiculous. Google rules the Internet.

[Catalyste]

It can be considered as spam depending on how many you use. Try avoiding site-wide and navigation links using the same Anchors. I would recommend that you build your content trying to provide relevant information to searchers rather then relevant keywords for rankings.

Also, if you use a lot of keywords you should also have a lot of great links since this is how you can judge a great content.

[EGOL]

I see lots of what appear to be "opinions" as answers here.

Does anyone have a link to an article with data that clearly ties keyword links in articles that connect to pages on the same site being a genuine problem that has been penalized?  A video or blog post where a Googler such as Matt Cutts is quoted would also be great proof.

If this was a problem then sites like Wikipedia would be in big trouble.

[Koenseo]

Agreed, and also the reason I asked this, I haven't come across this kind of proof yet.

I would think Google, will distinguish incontent keywords from the ones in link anchor texts, but I'd like to be a little more sure on that..

[UnderRugSwept]

Wouldn't you say much of SEO is based on opinion and speculation because Google will never reveal all their methods? Sure, there are some things that can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, but they are few and far between.