Internal linking is the practice of connecting the pages of your own site to each other with hyperlinks. It is one of the most controllable and underused levers in SEO, because unlike backlinks, every internal link is yours to place.
What internal links do
- Distribute authority. Link value flowing into one page can be passed to others, so linking from strong pages to important ones lifts them.
- Aid discovery. Crawlers follow internal links to find new pages. An orphaned page with no internal links is hard to discover and index.
- Establish context. The pages you link together, and the words you link with, tell engines how your content relates and what each page is about.
- Guide users. Good internal links keep readers moving to relevant next steps, which improves engagement.
How to do it well
Link from high-authority pages to the pages you most want to rank. Use descriptive anchor text that reflects the destination, not “click here.” Build topical depth by linking related articles into clusters around a central pillar page.
Keep important pages within a few clicks of the homepage so they are easy to reach and crawl.
Internal linking and AI search
AI engines map the relationships between your pages partly through internal links. A well-linked cluster signals genuine topical authority on a subject, which makes the engine more confident citing your pages for queries in that area. A pile of disconnected pages signals neither depth nor structure. For the cluster pattern this supports, see topic cluster.