Glossary
What is an internal link?
An internal link is a link from one page on your site to another page on the same site. Internal links help search engines find pages, understand how they relate and decide which ones matter most, and help visitors move to what they need next. Every important page should be linked from other relevant pages.
Why they matter
- Discovery: Google finds most pages by following links. A page with no internal links may never be crawled.
- Context: links and their anchor text tell Google what pages are about and how they relate.
- Priority: pages linked from many places, especially the homepage and navigation, look more important.
- Equity: internal links spread link equity from pages that earned backlinks to pages that need it.
Good practice
- Link related pages in the body text where it helps the reader.
- Use descriptive anchors, not "click here".
- Link new pages from relevant strong pages on launch.
- Make sure every important page is linked from somewhere; fix orphan pages.
- Keep links pointing to the final URL, not through redirects.
An example of a linking system
This glossary links every term to its related terms, and directory profiles link the terms they use. Each new page strengthens the others, and visitors can follow a concept as deep as they want. A pillar page with cluster pages works the same way.
Example
A SaaS adds links from its five most-linked blog posts to a new feature page. Google indexes the page within days and it starts ranking for its main search in a few weeks.
FAQ
How many internal links should a page have?
As many as are useful to the reader. There's no fixed number.
Do internal links pass PageRank?
Yes. That's one reason they help important pages rank.
Should internal links be nofollow?
No. Nofollowing your own links wastes them.