Internal linking refers to the links between the pages of a website. Google finds new pages through these links, reads the anchor text to understand what the target page is about, and gives more weight to pages that are heavily linked. The hub and spoke model has proven effective: one central page per topic links to all subpages, and each subpage links back and to one or two neighbours.
A blog post that no other page links to is, as far as Google is concerned, a page with no recommendation. It might get found because it's in the sitemap, but it gets no weight. Conversely, an unassuming subpage can become strong if twenty posts with clear anchor text point to it. That's internal linking: the links between your own pages, and the one link signal you fully control yourself.
Why internal links matter
Google crawls a website by following links. This has three effects:
- Discoverability: a page with no link pointing to it gets crawled more slowly or not at all. Google itself documents that links are the main way new pages are discovered.
- Weight: pages that receive many links are seen as more important within the website. Each link passes on some of the weight of the linking page.
- Context: the anchor text, the clickable words, tells Google what the target page is about. "Click here" says nothing, "Painting a facade: cost per m2" says everything.
The hub and spoke model
The simplest workable structure is a wheel: a hub page per topic in the middle, with the spokes, the posts covering individual questions, around it. The hub is usually a service page or a detailed overview page. The rules:
- The hub links to every spoke, with a short description.
- Every spoke links back to the hub, within the text, not just in the menu.
- Every spoke links to one or two neighbouring spokes, wherever it helps the reader.
- Spokes from different topics only link to each other when it genuinely fits the content.
Example structure for an electrical contractor, topic: charging stations:
| Role | Page | Links to |
|---|---|---|
| Hub | Service page "Installing a charging station" | All six posts |
| Spoke | "How much does a wallbox with installation cost?" | Hub, funding, 11 or 22 kW |
| Spoke | "Funding for charging stations in Thurgau" | Hub, costs |
| Spoke | "Wallbox 11 kW or 22 kW: what's enough for a single-family home" | Hub, costs |
| Spoke | "Charging station in a rented flat: who pays, who decides" | Hub, condominium ownership |
| Spoke | "Charging stations in condominium ownership: the path to a decision" | Hub, rented flat |
| Spoke | "How an installation works: from the site visit to the first charge" | Hub, costs |
This turns seven pages into a network in which the service page collects the most weight. Several such wheels side by side form topic clusters, the basic structure of a company blog that grows over years.
Anchor text: describe, don't command
The anchor text is the link's label. Three rules:
- It describes the destination: "Funding for charging stations in Thurgau" instead of "find out more".
- It varies: ten links with exactly the same anchor text to the same page look mechanical. Use natural variations.
- It sits within a sentence: a link in the middle of running text gets clicked more often and counts for more than a list of links at the end.
Avoid anchor texts made of pure keywords that don't work within a sentence. If the sentence with the link sounds clumsy read aloud, it's built wrong.
Finding orphaned pages
An orphaned page has no incoming internal links at all. You can find such pages in Google Search Console: the "Links" report shows the most frequently linked pages under "Internal links". Export this list and compare it with your sitemap. Any address that appears in the sitemap but is missing from the link report, or has only one link, is a candidate. A second clue is the status "Discovered, currently not indexed" in the page indexing report: this often points to pages that Google only knows about from the sitemap. What to do in that case is explained under Page is not indexed.
It's worth doing this comparison every six months, because every relaunch, every menu change and every deleted page creates new orphans.
Rules of thumb for blog posts
- Two to four links in the text per post: one to the service page, the rest to related posts.
- At least one link back from an older post for every new post. Otherwise, the new post is an orphan.
- The first link appears in the first third, not just in the closing paragraph.
- Check links to deleted or redirected pages once a quarter and point them to the current target.
- No links out of a sense of obligation. If the reader can't do anything with the target at that point, leave it out.
These points are also part of the checklist after writing.
What to do with this
Try sketching your website as wheels: which service pages are hubs, which posts belong to them as spokes, and which posts are left hanging in the air? The pages left hanging get a hub and two links first. After that, the rule of thumb applies to every new post: two to four links out, one in. This takes ten minutes per post and, over time, replaces every costly external link-building measure.
Frequently asked questions
Do links in the menu and footer also count as internal links?
Yes, Google follows them, but they appear on every page and therefore say little about the importance of any single target page. Links from body text with descriptive anchor text are the stronger signal. The menu ensures that the most important pages are reachable; the text provides weight and context.
How many internal links can a page have?
Google doesn't set an upper limit. In practice, things become confusing once you reach a few dozen links in the text, and each additional link spreads the weight further. For a blog post, two to four links in the text make sense; for a pillar page, ten to twenty can also work, as long as each one helps the reader.
Should I add links to old posts afterwards?
Absolutely, it's the cheapest SEO measure there is. For every new post, look for two older posts on the same topic and add a link to the new one there. After a year, every post has several incoming links this way, without you ever having run a link-building campaign.
Do internal links need a nofollow attribute?
No. nofollow was intended for links you don't want to vouch for, such as in comments. Internal links are meant to pass on weight, so they stay without the attribute. If you want to keep pages out of the index, use noindex on the target page instead of nofollow on the link.