Internal Links: What They Are and Why They Matter for SEO
Learn what internal links are, why they matter for SEO and rankings, and exactly how to audit and improve them on your site. Step by step for complete beginners.
What you will learn in this guide
- What internal links are and how they pass authority around your site
- Why anchor text matters and what makes a good one
- How to find pages on your site with no internal links pointing to them
- How to find pages with too many outgoing links
- How to audit your internal link structure using the free tool
- The most common internal linking mistakes and how to fix them
1 What is an internal link?
An internal link is a link from one page on your website to another page on the same website. When you write a blog post and link to another article you wrote, that is an internal link. When your navigation menu links to your homepage, those are internal links too.
They are different from external links — links that go to other websites — and backlinks — links from other websites pointing to yours.
2 What is anchor text and why does it matter?
Anchor text is the clickable words in a link. Instead of linking with "click here", good anchor text describes what the destination page is about — like "internal link guide" or "how to fix 404 errors".
Google uses anchor text as a signal to understand what the linked page covers. If ten pages link to your pricing page with the anchor text "view plans and pricing", Google knows that page is about plans and pricing.
3 How to audit your internal links
- 1 Go to the Internal Link Analyser Open performance-tools.html#internal-links and enter the URL of a page you want to audit.
- 2 Review all internal links on the page The tool shows every internal link found on that page — the anchor text used, where it links to, and whether the destination returns a 200 OK or an error.
- 3 Look for broken internal links Any internal link pointing to a 404 page is wasting link authority and creating a bad user experience. Update or remove these links immediately.
- 4 Check anchor text quality Look for generic anchor text ("click here", "read more") and replace it with descriptive text that matches the destination page's topic.
4 Common internal linking mistakes
- ⚠ Orphan pages — pages with no internal links pointing to them If no other page on your site links to a page, Google may struggle to find and index it. Every important page should have at least one internal link pointing to it from a relevant page.
- ⚠ Too many links on one page A page with hundreds of links dilutes the authority passed through each one. Keep navigation clean and focus links on your most important destination pages.
- ⚠ Linking to the same page multiple times with different anchor text If you link to the same page twice on the same page, Google typically only counts the first anchor text. Use consistent anchor text and avoid duplicate links to the same destination.