Internal Linking
The practice of linking from one page on your site to another to distribute authority and guide crawlers.
Key takeaways
- Internal Linking is the practice of linking from one page on your site to another to distribute authority and guide crawlers.
- Link from your strongest pages to the pages you most want to rank, using descriptive anchor text.
- Avoid: leaving pages orphaned, reachable only through the sitemap.
What is Internal Linking?
A strong internal link graph improves indexing speed and ranking distribution. Use descriptive anchor text and prioritise links from high authority pages to pages you want to push.
Google's guidance on crawlable links explains how it discovers pages through links.
Why Internal Linking matters for SEO in 2026
Internal links are how search engines find pages and understand which ones matter. They're also the one link signal you fully control, which makes them especially valuable for newer sites without many external links.
For a wider view of where this fits, see our full SEO glossary or explore the SEO and GEO service we run for clients.
How to apply Internal Linking on your site
Knowing the concept is only half of it. Work through these steps in order to put Internal Linking into practice on your own pages:
- Link from your strongest pages to the pages you most want to rank, using descriptive anchor text.
- Group related content into clusters that link to a central page and to each other.
- Make sure no important page sits more than three clicks from the homepage.
Common mistakes to avoid
Most sites that struggle with Internal Linking fall into the same traps. Check your pages against each of these before moving on:
- Leaving pages orphaned, reachable only through the sitemap.
- Using 'click here' or 'read more' as anchor text instead of words that describe the target.
- Adding dozens of footer links to every page instead of linking where it helps the reader.
Questions about Internal Linking
The practice of linking from one page on your site to another to distribute authority and guide crawlers.
Internal links are how search engines find pages and understand which ones matter. They're also the one link signal you fully control, which makes them especially valuable for newer sites without many external links.
Start here: link from your strongest pages to the pages you most want to rank, using descriptive anchor text. Then group related content into clusters that link to a central page and to each other.
The most common is leaving pages orphaned, reachable only through the sitemap. Another is using 'click here' or 'read more' as anchor text instead of words that describe the target.