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What is internal linking?

Internal links connect pages on the same site. They help people and Google find pages, understand them and see which ones matter most.

Updated

Internal linking means linking from one page of your site to another page on the same site. Internal links help visitors move around, help Google discover pages and understand what each is about from the link text, and show which pages you consider most important.

Why do internal links matter for SEO?

  • Discovery: Google finds most pages by following links. A page with no internal links (an orphan) may be found late or not at all.
  • Context: the anchor text tells Google what the target page is about.
  • Importance: pages linked from many places, especially from the homepage and menus, are treated as more important.

What makes a good internal link?

  • Descriptive anchor text: say what the reader will get.
  • A crawlable HTML link: an a element with an href, not a click handler on a div.
  • Placed where it helps the reader, usually in the body text near the related point.
Good and weak anchor text
<!-- Good: says what the page is about -->
<a href="/guides/water-heater-sizing">how to size a tankless water heater</a>

<!-- Weak: tells Google and readers nothing -->
<a href="/guides/water-heater-sizing">click here</a>

Example

A new page sits in the Page indexing report as Discovered - currently not indexed for weeks, with only a sitemap entry pointing to it. Linking it from three related, already-indexed articles gives Google stronger reasons to crawl it and context about what it covers.

SEO Rank Fixer’s fixes suggest which of your pages to link from, chosen from pages that already rank for related queries. Related: backlinks, striking distance keywords.

Sources