This translation has not been editorially reviewed yet. The German version is authoritative. Deutsche Fassung →
Checking internal linking: how pages carry each other
Internal links determine which pages get found at all, and how important they appear relative to each other. The check verifies whether a page has meaningful internal links — a page nothing points to barely exists for search engines.
- The typical case is the orphaned subpage: it's in the sitemap, but no menu and no text points to it. At best, it then gets visited occasionally, and practically never ranks well.
- The second typical case is the opposite: every page links to every other page via a giant menu. Then no link carries any signal any more about what's important.
- Links within body text with anchor text that names the destination are useful. They tell the reader and the search engine at the same time what to expect there.
