Bridge SEO
Internal links: connecting the pages of one website
An internal link points from one page of a site to another page of the same site. They are how readers move through a site and how search engines find its pages: Google says "the vast majority of the new pages Google finds every day are through links." They are the on-page signal that makes pages one site.
What an internal link is
An internal link points to an address on the same site; an external link points to a different one. Navigation menus, breadcrumbs, links in the body text and lists of related pages are all internal links. Each one is a path from one page to another, for a reader and for a crawler.
What counts as one site is the domain the reader is on. A link from example.com/guides/ to example.com/guides/atlas-40/ is internal; a link to shop.example.org/ is external, even if the same company owns both.
How Google finds and follows them
Google finds links in HTML anchor elements, and only reliably there. Its link documentation, last updated on and checked on , says: "Generally, Google can only crawl your link if it's an <a> HTML element (also known as anchor element) with an href attribute."
That excludes some patterns that look like links to a user. A <span> with a click handler, an <a> without href, or a link built only in a script event may work in the browser and still be invisible to a crawler. Google lists these as "not recommended," while noting that links inserted with JavaScript are fine "as long as it uses the HTML markup shown above." If JavaScript adds your links, Google suggests checking that they are present in the rendered HTML.
Google also uses links as "a signal when determining the relevancy of pages," which makes the words of each link, its anchor text, part of the same picture.
Why pages without links get missed
A page that no other page links to is an orphan, and it is easy to miss. Google's sitemap documentation describes the normal case: "If your site's pages are properly linked, Google can usually discover most of your site," where properly linked means that every important page "can be reached through some form of navigation." A page outside that navigation depends on a sitemap or on links from other sites to be found, and readers on the site cannot reach it at all.
A sitemap helps discovery but does not replace links. It tells a search engine a page exists; it does not give a reader a way to get there, or say how the page relates to the others.
Building a link structure
A useful structure follows the subject. A section page links down to each of its pages; each page links back up to its section; related pages link to each other where a reader would want to go next.
This site is one example of the pattern. Each section has a parent page that introduces the subject and lists its pages, and every page links to its parent near the top, so a reader who arrives deep in a section can always find the rest of it. That is a choice of this site, not a rule from Google, but it follows Google's idea of properly linked.
Three habits keep a structure healthy:
- Link where it helps the reader. A link earns its place when the reader would want the other page at that point in the text.
- Point at the final address. A link to an address that redirects adds a hop; update internal links when pages move, as covered under redirect chains.
- Check after changes. Removing or renaming a page can leave links pointing nowhere and pages with nothing pointing to them.
How many links a page should have
There is no published number. Google's guidance is about whether links are crawlable and descriptive, not about how many a page carries. A page with a few links that a reader would actually follow is better than one where the useful links are lost among dozens of others. Navigation menus and footers add links to every page, which is normal; what matters most is the links in the content itself.
Links in templates
Many internal links are not written on the page at all: they come from the template, in menus, footers, sidebars and lists of related pages. Those links appear on every page that uses the template, which makes them powerful and easy to get wrong. A footer link to a page that was removed breaks on hundreds of pages at once; a related-pages list that only ever shows the newest items leaves older pages with fewer and fewer links. Review template links whenever the structure of the site changes.
Finding problems
A site crawler finds the common faults: pages no other page links to, links pointing to missing pages, and links that pass through redirects. For a small site, the same check can be done by hand from the navigation and a list of pages. Fixing an internal link is cheap compared with most work on a site, because the page and the link are both under your control.
FAQ
What are internal links?
Internal links are links from one page of a website to another page of the same website, such as menu items, breadcrumbs and links in the text. They let readers move through a site and help search engines find its pages; Google says most new pages it finds each day are found through links.
How many internal links should a page have?
There is no official number. Google's guidance concerns whether links are crawlable and descriptive, not how many there are. Link where a reader would want the other page, keep important pages reachable from the navigation, and avoid burying useful links among many others.
Do internal links help SEO?
Google uses links to find pages and as a signal of relevance, and says that descriptive anchor text helps it understand the linked page. Internal links are the part of that you fully control, so a clear structure helps both readers and search engines understand the site.
What is an orphan page?
An orphan page is a page that no other page on the site links to. Readers on the site cannot reach it, and search engines can find it only through a sitemap or links from elsewhere. Linking it from a relevant page, or removing it if it is no longer needed, fixes the problem.