Internal linking is almost always underrated
Site owners invest in backlinks but ignore internal linking - yet it is internal linking that distributes link equity across the domain and helps Google find and correctly rank the deeper pages of a site.
Internal linking is the system of links inside a site that connects its pages. For Google, internal links do three jobs: they pass PageRank between pages, help Googlebot discover and crawl every URL, and show the topical relationships between pages.
What anchor text is
Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a link. In the code it sits between the <a> and </a> tags. For example, in the link "website SEO audit" the anchor text is exactly those words. Google uses anchor text to understand what the target page is about.
Anchor text can be exact match (same as the query), partial match (the query plus other words), branded (the company name) or naked/generic (a bare URL or "here", "learn more"). For internal links, descriptive anchors work best - more on them below.
Internal linking structure: why you need it
For sites with several versions (for example, an English and a Spanish version for the US market), internal linking has an extra dimension: a clean internal link structure inside each version helps Google.com index every version.
How internal links affect SEO in Google
PageRank distribution across the site
PageRank is an algorithmic measure of a URL's authority based on the link graph. Internal links distribute PageRank between pages:
pages with high incoming authority: the home page, the blog home page, categories. They receive the most PageRank from external backlinks.
Distribution to money pages: if authority is concentrated on the home page while service and product pages get no internal links from authoritative content, the money pages miss out on PageRank.
Strategy for sites: blog posts that collect backlinks as an informational resource should link to money pages. That passes part of the blog's PageRank to service pages in Google.
Crawl architecture of the site
Googlebot crawls a site by following internal links. Pages with no incoming internal links ("orphan pages") are crawled rarely or not at all:
"orphan" pages: find pages with no incoming internal links using the Google Search Console page indexing report or Screaming Frog. Pages without incoming links often stay unindexed in Google not because of content problems but because crawlers cannot reach them.
click depth: pages reachable from the home page in 1-2 clicks are crawled and indexed more often than pages 4+ clicks deep. For blogs with a large archive, make sure posts are reachable through category navigation, not only through chronological pagination.
Internal linking strategy for a site
Internal link anchor text
Internal link anchor text is one of the most direct on-page SEO signals. For US sites:
descriptive anchor text: internal links with descriptive anchors in the page language ("internal linking for websites", "website SEO audit") give Google more topical context than bare URLs or "click here".
word forms and variants of anchor text: Google understands plurals, verb forms and close synonyms. The anchor "internal links" carries the same meaning as "internal linking". There is no need to repeat one exact form mechanically.
Anchor text variety for one page: if 10 internal links with identical anchor text point to a service page, Google may read it as keyword stuffing. Vary your anchors: topical variants, descriptive phrases, branded links.
Topic clusters through internal links
The modern approach to internal linking is topic clusters:
pillar-cluster for Google: choose a "pillar" page (a broad topic: "SEO for small businesses in the US"). Around it, create "cluster" pages (specific subtopics: "technical SEO", "internal links", "backlinks for Google"). Cluster pages link to the pillar and to each other.
Why topic clusters help in Google: topically related internal links help Google see the site as an expert resource on a specific subject rather than a set of unrelated pages.
Internal linking for a multilingual site
For sites with several language versions (for example, en-us and es-us):
Internal links ONLY inside a language version: en-us pages should link only to other en-us pages. Cross-language internal links (an en-us page linking to an es-us page) confuse Google and create a duplicate content signal.
Hreflang instead of cross-language links: to connect the language versions of a site, use hreflang tags rather than mutual links between versions.
Language consistency of anchor text: anchor text in the en-us version is written in English. Mixing languages in the anchors of one version sends Google mixed language signals.
Technical aspects of internal links for a site
Joomla/WordPress and internal links
Joomla for sites: in Joomla, use SEF URLs (search engine friendly URLs) correctly to get readable URLs in anchors and href attributes. Joomla's Related Articles module is automated internal linking that works through article meta keywords.
WordPress for sites: plugins like Link Whisper suggest internal links automatically based on your content. Manual editorial links (contextual links inside the text) are worth more to Google than automated sidebar or footer links.
JavaScript links and Google
Google crawls JavaScript-generated links (React, Vue, Angular), but with a delay (JavaScript rendering is deferred to a second crawl wave). For critical internal links (navigation, links to money pages), plain HTML links are preferable to JavaScript-generated ones.
Internal link audit for a site
Tools for an internal linking audit:
Screaming Frog SEO Spider: crawls the site and shows all internal links, orphan pages and link depth. Free version up to 500 URLs, paid version without limits.
Ahrefs Site Audit: automatically finds orphan pages, internal links to 4xx pages and opportunities to improve internal linking. A paid tool.
Google Search Console Links Report: shows the number of incoming internal links to every page. Pages with 0 incoming internal links need attention right away.
Internal linking and GEO: how AI bots read a site
ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI bots crawl a site by following links, just like Googlebot. A page that is hard to reach shows up less often among AI answer sources. And a connected topic - an article leads to a service, the service to prices and questions - helps AI see that the site covers the topic fully and can be trusted as a source.
How we build internal links for client pages is described in detail on the step page Internal links.
FAQ: internal links for SEO
How many internal links should a page have? There is no strict limit. Google recommends keeping the number of links on a page "reasonable" (its old unofficial benchmark was about 100, but it is outdated). For blog posts, 3-7 contextual internal links woven naturally into the text work better than 20 added mechanically. Every internal link should make editorial sense.
Should internal links to thin content pages be nofollow? No. Nofollowing internal links to manage PageRank ("PageRank sculpting") does not work. If thin content pages should not be crawled, use a robots.txt disallow or a meta robots noindex, not nofollow on internal links.
How does internal linking help new pages get indexed? Adding internal links to new pages from authoritative existing pages is the fastest way to get new URLs crawled and indexed. Googlebot follows internal links during scheduled crawls, and a link from an authoritative page (the home page, popular articles) speeds up discovery of a new page considerably.
Conclusion: internal linking as a systematic SEO tool
Internal linking is not a one-time optimization but an ongoing process. New articles should get incoming internal links when they are published. Money pages should be checked regularly for enough incoming internal links. Orphan pages should be brought into the link structure. Topic clusters should be kept up to date with links between clusters. This systematic approach builds up a structural SEO advantage for the site in Google.
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