Internal links: how they help crawlability and discovery

Internal links are links from one page on your site to another page on your site. They’re the glue that holds your site together.

Internal links help crawlers discover new pages and help users navigate.

Why internal links matter

• Crawl discovery: links help Googlebot find pages that aren’t linked from anywhere else
• Link equity: links pass authority between your pages
• User flow: good internal links guide users to related content

Orphan pages (pages with no internal links pointing to them) are hard for crawlers to find and users to reach.

Best practices for internal links

• Link contextually: link from relevant content, not random places
• Use descriptive anchor text: tell users (and crawlers) what they’ll get if they click
• Prioritize important pages: link to your most important content more frequently
• Fix broken internal links: broken links waste crawl budget and frustrate users

Our Link Checker can help you find broken links quickly.

Internal link structure

Think about user journeys, not just SEO. Make sure:

• important pages are easy to reach from the homepage
• related content is linked together
• users can get back to main sections from deep pages

Internal links don’t need to be fancy. They just need to be useful.

Link back to the glossary

Quick definition: Internal link.

Related wiki terms

• External link
• Backlink
• Anchor text