Internal Linking
How Internal Links Help Search Engines Find Pages
Internal linking SEO is the practice of using links between pages on the same website to help search engines discover, understand and prioritize content. An internal link points from one page on a site to another page on that site. Crawlers follow these links from page to page, so every important page should be reachable through them.
A page with no internal links pointing to it is called an orphan page. A crawler may find it only through a sitemap, if at all, and visitors cannot reach it by browsing. Internal links prevent this by connecting pages into one structure. An HTML sitemap can support the same goal for visitors, as explained in the comparison of HTML and XML sitemaps.
Link Signals, Anchor Text and Click Depth
Internal links also help search engines judge which pages matter. A page that receives many links from prominent pages on the same site tends to be treated as more important within that site.
The anchor text, which is the clickable words, tells search engines what the target page covers. A link labeled “web hosting comparison” says more than “click here”. Anchor text should be natural and descriptive.
Click depth is the number of clicks needed to reach a page from the homepage. Pages many clicks deep tend to be crawled less often, so keeping key pages within a few clicks of the homepage helps both visitors and crawlers. The way a site’s addresses reflect its layout is covered in URL structure, and limits on crawling are covered in crawl budget.
A Guide That Links to a Glossary
A hosting review site publishes a guide about choosing a server type. The guide mentions a technical term in passing and links that term to its glossary article, using the term itself as the anchor text. A visitor who does not know the word can read the definition at once.
A crawler learns that the glossary article is relevant to the guide. That page becomes reachable from a relevant context rather than only from a directory page.
Frequently asked questions
How many internal links should a page have?
There is no fixed number. Each link should help a reader go somewhere useful and should be relevant to the page. A page that links to a few closely related articles and its category page usually works well. Adding links only to raise the count dilutes the value of the useful ones.
Are internal links more important than the sitemap?
They do different jobs. A sitemap lists URLs for search engines to consider, but it does not show how pages relate to each other or how important they are. Internal links provide that context and the route between pages. The two work best together rather than as substitutes.