Internal Linking
Internal linking is important for both user experience and search engine crawlers, to help them find relevant and important pages. Our SEO Office Hours recaps on internal linking topics cover queries including the importance of internal links for SEO, how anchor text is used as a ranking signal, and how Google handles internally linked parameter URLs for indexing.
For more on internal linking, check out: 5 Internal Linking Strategies to Boost SEO and Drive Organic Traffic
Internal links coming from the homepage can be an indication of content importance
Google spreads external link value through your internal linking structure, so internal links coming from the homepage can be an indicator of relative importance. These pages may therefore be given a little more weight in the search results, although it’s not guaranteed that rankings will improve.
Google Will Ignore Links on Noindexed Pages Over Time
If pages are noindex, Google will ignore those links over time. If you have pages which are only linked from noindex pages then Google may not see the linked pages as important.
Repeated Links to the Same Page Will be Ignored
Multiple repeated links to the same page won’t be seen as spammy, and it won’t change anything.
It’s Important to Have a Clear Heirarchy of Internal Links on a Site
Internal linking is the best way for Google to understand the context of individual pages on a site, and the number of clicks to a page from the homepage helps them to understand how it fits in. However, having a clear hierarchy of pages further helps Google to understand which parts of the site belong together, and once this is in place the absolute number of clicks is less critical.
It is Not Recommended to Link Internally to Cached Versions of URLs
Generating a website structure by pointing internal links to the cache URL is generally bad practice, as the URLs can change overtime and a lot of the caches are blocked by robots.txt. In this case, John recommends keeping internal links within your site, particularly for crawling and indexing purposes.
No Need to Remove Internal Links on Non Canonical Pages as Google is Able to Figure Out Connections
Google sees links from a canonical page to a canonicalised page, and sometimes there can be multiple internal links that are associated with each. In this case, Google will combine all of the signals and keep them with each page, but is able to understand the connection between the canonical and canonicalised pages.
Links Within PDF Files Do Not Provide Any SEO Advantages but are Valuable for Usability
From a usability point of view, John recommends including a link back to your website within PDF documents, as they can make it easier to visit your site. However, as there is no way to let Google know about the link, it is likely they will be viewed as ‘text links’, which are similar to nofollow links where they would not forward any signals through them.
Jump Links Are Used to Further Understand Page Structure Not Pass PageRank
Jump links, where you link from one part of a page to another part of that same page, are not something that Google will use to pass signals such as PageRank. Instead, they are used to further understand the structure of the page and can be shown in search results to link to a particularly relevant part of the page for a user’s query.
Automatically Created Links on a Webpage Will Not be Seen as Spam by Google
Automatically created links within the text of a page, for example links to tag pages, will not be seen as spam by Google. John doesn’t see any problems occurring from this as it’s a set up of internal linking that many sites implement.
Use Crawlers to Detect Internal Links to Redirecting URLs After Migration
Use crawlers like Lumar to detect internal links pointing to a redirecting URL after a migration.