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When is it ambiguous--and when is it just not understood?

Ambiguous anchors are not readily connotative nor denotative. Here the rationale for the anchor placement and link destination are not immediately obvious. In this sense, most works that play with connotative anchors can be thought of as ambiguous--the full semiotic import of the anchors will probably never be known.

The level of ambiguity is difficult to measure. What may be obvious to some may not be clear to others. What a reader thinks is ambiguous also depends on how much of the work the reader has experienced as things may become clearer later.  For example, a link from a text anchor "father" to a node on adultery may be ambiguous at first, but if the reader learns that the son watched the father's adulterous encounter from behind the curtains when he was seven, the reader may now consider the anchor to be connotative rather than ambiguous.

Bereft of connections

Other sites seem to place anchors arbitrarily, without connections. It is easy to play mind games with the Fuddruckers [19] anchor for career opportunities hidden in the jalapeno peppers, but meaningful connections are not readily apparent.

Bereft of interpretation

Some works, such as Him [9] or The Rainbow Factory [22], provide the same type of anchor to access all content, thus obviating any connotative potential. At the same time, these are not named and do not function denotatively. Anchors that trigger random content may also be ambiguous.