An internal link is a link from one of your articles to another on the same site. Good internal links help readers find the next useful article and help search engines understand which pages belong together and which matter most.
There is no magic number of links per article. What matters is that every article is reachable, that related articles point to each other, and that each topic has a clear main article.
Which links to add first
Work in this order — each step gives more than the next:
- Links to articles that nothing links to. An orphan page gains more from its first link than any other page gains from its tenth.
- Links to the pillar. Every article in a cluster should link to the cluster’s main article. See Pillar pages.
- Links between closely related articles. Two museums on the same island, two recipes with the same technique.
- Links across clusters, where a reader would genuinely want to go next: from a hotel to the neighbourhood it’s in.
Where the link belongs
Put the link where the subject comes up in the text. A sentence that already names the other article’s topic is the ideal place — the reader is thinking about it right there.
Links in the body text carry more meaning than links in menus, footers or “related posts” boxes, because the surrounding words explain what the linked page is about. Boxes and menus are fine for navigation; they don’t replace links in context.
Near the start of an article is good for the most important link (often the pillar). Beyond that, place links where they help, not by a formula.
Anchor text
The anchor text is the clickable text. Good anchor text tells the reader — and search engines — what they will find.
- Describe the target: “Vasa Museum’s opening hours”, not “click here”.
- Vary it naturally. Different articles can link to the same page with different wording, as they would in normal writing.
- Don’t force exact keywords into sentences where they read awkwardly. Write for the reader.
- Keep it short: a few words, usually the name of the thing.
In ClusterIQ
Text Match finds every place where an article already names another article’s title without linking to it, and turns it into a link with one click — the ideal link, in context, with natural anchor text. With Pro, Link Suggestions writes a new sentence with the link for any two articles, and ranks the best candidates. Every link can be undone.
How many is too many?
A long article can hold many useful links; a short one a handful. The warning signs are not a count but a pattern:
- links that don’t help the reader at this point in the text,
- several links in a row with the same anchor text,
- every article linking to every other article in the cluster, so no page stands out.
If a link wouldn’t make sense to a reader, leave it out.
Keep links working
Links break when articles are deleted, merged or renamed. After changes to your structure, check that important links still point to the right page, and redirect removed URLs to their closest replacement.