What is an internal link?

An internal link points from a page on your site to another page on the same site: menus, footers, breadcrumbs and links inside the text. A link that comes to you from another site is a backlink.

#Why it matters

• Search engines mostly discover new pages by following internal links. An "orphan" page that nothing links to is found late, if at all.
• Links pass importance between pages. A page that receives many internal links is read as one of the site's key pages.
• The anchor text hints at what the target page is about.
• They guide visitors to related content.

#Where you see it in SEOAsist

• Technical Audit checks the internal links on every crawled page. The Broken internal link (4xx) and Redirected internal link issues are listed there.
• The SEO analysis finding "keywords close to page one (11–20)" suggests moving those keywords up by expanding the page and adding internal links.
• Articles generated with Write in the content studio include internal links to your crawled pages.

More: Technical audit, Content studio.

#Example

A contextual link from a blog post to the relevant category page:

<p><a href="/dining-tables/extendable">Extendable dining tables</a> save space
in small living rooms.</p>

#Common mistakes

• Using anchor text that says nothing, like "click here".
• Still linking to old URLs that redirect; point the link straight at the final target.
• Linking to important pages only from the menu, never from within content.
• Not cleaning up links to deleted pages; they remain as broken links.