The Anchor and the Buoy: On the Spacer in the Long Chain

In the intricate system of a website, we often talk about the anchor—the hyperlink that creates a tether from one page to another. We praise the strong, descriptive link that acts as a firm anchor, holding a user securely to a new piece of content. And we talk about the chain itself, the sequential path a reader might follow from one idea to the next. But what about the space in between? What about the link that seems to serve no other purpose than to mark the passage from one substantive idea to the next, a simple ‘continue reading’ or a bare ‘next’? This is the spacer link, the buoy bobbing on the surface, and its role is more complex than its simplicity suggests.

One might argue this is purely a user interface concern. A designer places a ‘Next Page’ button because the alternative—a long, scrolling page—is deemed worse. But the decision to break content and connect it with such a minimal link has profound implications for how both users and machines understand the structure of your information. A chain of strong, contextual links tells a story. It suggests a logical progression, a build-up of concepts, each link text a promise of what’s to come. A chain of identical ‘Next’ buttons, however, tells a different story. It implies a sequence, yes, but the nature of that sequence is opaque. It could be chronological, it could be a deliberate argument, or it could simply be an arbitrary split dictated by an arbitrary page length.

The Navigational Footnote

This is where the spacer link becomes something of a navigational footnote. It doesn’t carry the semantic weight of an anchor; it’s a procedural instruction. For the user, it’s a call to action with minimal context. They click not because they are compelled by a specific phrase, but because they are following a prescribed path. This isn’t inherently bad—it’s the mechanism of a photo gallery or a multi-part article—but it does surrender a certain amount of authorial guidance. You are handing the reins to the user’s momentum, not their curiosity about a specific, named topic.

For the search engine crawler, this type of link is also a signal, but a weaker one. It confirms a relationship between pages, but the lack of rich anchor text leaves the nature of that relationship largely undefined. The crawler knows Page 2 follows Page 1, but it doesn’t know *why*. This can inadvertently silo the deeper pages in a sequence, making them harder to discover outside of their linear path. The buoy marks a location, but it doesn’t describe the waters around it.

So, does this mean we should always replace ‘Next’ with a descriptive sentence? Not necessarily. The spacer has its purpose. It’s clean, it’s unambiguous, and in interfaces where space is limited or the context is overwhelmingly clear (like a step-by-step tutorial), its minimalism is a virtue. The key is intentionality. Are you using a ‘Next’ button as a thoughtful architectural element, a simple buoy to guide a reader through a pre-ordained sequence? Or is it a default, a convenient way to avoid the harder work of weaving a more meaningful tapestry of internal links? The strongest sites use both: the deep anchor for discovery and thematic connection, and the humble spacer-buoy for clear, linear navigation. One builds the web of ideas; the other simply, quietly, points the way to the next page.

Notes & further reading

A few pages I came back to while writing this: