How do you decide which pages actually get your internal links?

• List the pages that actually matter. The ones that earn something. Usually a much shorter list than I expect.
• Check what points at each of those internally. Not the whole site, just those. Anything sitting on zero is the first job.
• Find the pages that already have some standing and see whether a link from them makes sense for a reader. If it doesn't read naturally, skip it. A forced link is worse than no link.
• Then worry about the count per article. It falls out of the steps above instead of being decided up front.

MadOnGrind said:

Something I got wrong for a long time, and I still see it in most internal linking threads here: the conversation is nearly always about how many links per article. Three to five, keep it natural, don't stuff. Reasonable advice, but it never told me which pages should be on the receiving end.

What changed it for me was inheriting a site with a pile of orphan pages. Decent articles, nothing pointing at them. I'd always assumed the crawl budget talk was overblown, so I ignored that and went hunting for content problems instead. Rewrote a few of them. Nothing moved.

Then I linked them properly from pages that already had some standing. They started getting picked up. Nothing else about those pages changed.

So now I work backwards, and it doesn't take long:

• List the pages that actually matter. The ones that earn something. Usually a much shorter list than I expect.
• Check what points at each of those internally. Not the whole site, just those. Anything sitting on zero is the first job.
• Find the pages that already have some standing and see whether a link from them makes sense for a reader. If it doesn't read naturally, skip it. A forced link is worse than no link.
• Then worry about the count per article. It falls out of the steps above instead of being decided up front.

The part I'm still unsure about is how far to push it. At some point you're linking to the same handful of pages from everywhere, and it starts to look engineered, both to a reader and probably to Google.

So how do you decide which pages get the links? Do you work from a fixed list of targets, or link naturally as you write and fix the gaps afterwards? And has anyone hit a point where consolidating too hard actually backfired?

Click to expand...

RotatingProxy said:

prioritize the pages that make other pages more complete

Click to expand...

MadOnGrind said:

Something I got wrong for a long time, and I still see it in most internal linking threads here: the conversation is nearly always about how many links per article. Three to five, keep it natural, don't stuff. Reasonable advice, but it never told me which pages should be on the receiving end.

What changed it for me was inheriting a site with a pile of orphan pages. Decent articles, nothing pointing at them. I'd always assumed the crawl budget talk was overblown, so I ignored that and went hunting for content problems instead. Rewrote a few of them. Nothing moved.

Then I linked them properly from pages that already had some standing. They started getting picked up. Nothing else about those pages changed.

So now I work backwards, and it doesn't take long:

• List the pages that actually matter. The ones that earn something. Usually a much shorter list than I expect.
• Check what points at each of those internally. Not the whole site, just those. Anything sitting on zero is the first job.
• Find the pages that already have some standing and see whether a link from them makes sense for a reader. If it doesn't read naturally, skip it. A forced link is worse than no link.
• Then worry about the count per article. It falls out of the steps above instead of being decided up front.

The part I'm still unsure about is how far to push it. At some point you're linking to the same handful of pages from everywhere, and it starts to look engineered, both to a reader and probably to Google.

So how do you decide which pages get the links? Do you work from a fixed list of targets, or link naturally as you write and fix the gaps afterwards? And has anyone hit a point where consolidating too hard actually backfired?

Click to expand...

Roger Marquez said:

If you decide a page needs to be published and indexed by default it "deserves" internal links (both ways)

Click to expand...

MadOnGrind said:

Something I got wrong for a long time, and I still see it in most internal linking threads here: the conversation is nearly always about how many links per article. Three to five, keep it natural, don't stuff. Reasonable advice, but it never told me which pages should be on the receiving end.

What changed it for me was inheriting a site with a pile of orphan pages. Decent articles, nothing pointing at them. I'd always assumed the crawl budget talk was overblown, so I ignored that and went hunting for content problems instead. Rewrote a few of them. Nothing moved.

Then I linked them properly from pages that already had some standing. They started getting picked up. Nothing else about those pages changed.

So now I work backwards, and it doesn't take long:

• List the pages that actually matter. The ones that earn something. Usually a much shorter list than I expect.
• Check what points at each of those internally. Not the whole site, just those. Anything sitting on zero is the first job.
• Find the pages that already have some standing and see whether a link from them makes sense for a reader. If it doesn't read naturally, skip it. A forced link is worse than no link.
• Then worry about the count per article. It falls out of the steps above instead of being decided up front.

The part I'm still unsure about is how far to push it. At some point you're linking to the same handful of pages from everywhere, and it starts to look engineered, both to a reader and probably to Google.

So how do you decide which pages get the links? Do you work from a fixed list of targets, or link naturally as you write and fix the gaps afterwards? And has anyone hit a point where consolidating too hard actually backfired?

Click to expand...

MadOnGrind said:

Something I got wrong for a long time, and I still see it in most internal linking threads here: the conversation is nearly always about how many links per article. Three to five, keep it natural, don't stuff. Reasonable advice, but it never told me which pages should be on the receiving end.

What changed it for me was inheriting a site with a pile of orphan pages. Decent articles, nothing pointing at them. I'd always assumed the crawl budget talk was overblown, so I ignored that and went hunting for content problems instead. Rewrote a few of them. Nothing moved.

Then I linked them properly from pages that already had some standing. They started getting picked up. Nothing else about those pages changed.

So now I work backwards, and it doesn't take long:

• List the pages that actually matter. The ones that earn something. Usually a much shorter list than I expect.
• Check what points at each of those internally. Not the whole site, just those. Anything sitting on zero is the first job.
• Find the pages that already have some standing and see whether a link from them makes sense for a reader. If it doesn't read naturally, skip it. A forced link is worse than no link.
• Then worry about the count per article. It falls out of the steps above instead of being decided up front.

The part I'm still unsure about is how far to push it. At some point you're linking to the same handful of pages from everywhere, and it starts to look engineered, both to a reader and probably to Google.

So how do you decide which pages get the links? Do you work from a fixed list of targets, or link naturally as you write and fix the gaps afterwards? And has anyone hit a point where consolidating too hard actually backfired?

Click to expand...