Repeating an exact keyword in internal anchor text is far lower risk than the backlink version of the same worry, and most of the penalty fear is imported from the wrong place. Google has stated there is no over-optimization penalty for internal links the way there is for manipulative backlink patterns. The reason is straightforward: you control your own internal links, so Google reads them mainly as a relevance and structure signal rather than as votes it needs to police for manipulation. Linking the words “standing desk” to the page that targets that keyword is exactly what internal anchors are for.
The penalty fear is real, but it lives on the external side. When the same exact-match commercial anchor shows up across many backlinks from other sites, that pattern is what algorithms like Penguin are built to catch, because it looks like links were placed to manipulate ranking rather than earned. That risk does not transfer wholesale to the links inside your own site. Treating every internal anchor as if it carried backlink-level danger is solving a problem you do not have.
That does not mean repeating one identical phrase on every internal link to a page is ideal. The reason to vary internal anchors is not penalty avoidance, it is clarity and usefulness. If every link to a page uses the same rigid phrase, it reads as if the page exists to chase that keyword rather than to help the reader, and it gives Google less context than a mix of descriptive variations would. Exact-match where it fits naturally, partial and descriptive variants elsewhere, is better writing and better signal, not a safety measure.
Stop rewriting every internal anchor out of fear of a penalty that does not apply internally. Use the exact keyword when it is the most accurate description of the destination, vary the phrasing when that reads more naturally, and save the real caution for the external link profile, where over-optimized anchors actually carry risk.