I am looking for some advice on internal linking best practices...

Guys,

This is my first post about an SEO topic here. I am trying to follow all of the rules as best I can. I know forums can get touchy sometimes.

I own a content site that is about 18 months old that reviews stereo components, audiophile gear etc... I will not post the URL here as per the rules but you can ask me directly if you are curious (or if you are shopping for speakers - I am the guy to ask about the)

I am a publisher as well as a professional SEO. With that said, I think I might have made a mistake around the time of the last algo update. Not sure but that's why I want to ask you.

I did a project where I removed a bunch of links from my content.... Internal links.

Some were to Amazon selling CDs and LPs on our equipment reviews. Those made me like $0.30 per sale but leak link juice. I can live without the money as I need better organic results on my growing long tail. Others were some external links to places like Wikipedia.com. Nice for user engagement but I got stingy on my link juice and removed those. I am OK with that at this point too. I removed some (but not all) of my YouTube.com music videos (remember MTV - this replaced it with the kids today) which help my reviews be more relevant and engaging but still I am being stingy with my links.

NOTE: many (not all but many) of the companies that we review will link to our review pages. In AHREFS.com terms these companies range in DR from say 40/100 to 75/100 or higher thus solid domains to get links from. Highly relevant. I pimp these links hard as you can imagine.

HERE'S MY QUESTION....
• I recently removed some internal content links too. Other reviews. Some were category links. This I fear was a mistake and I am considering going back in (very likely to do this) and put some back.
• Perhaps it was the algo update that is hurting traffic, maybe it is seasonality but the fall has been steep. I lost one (I didn't control it) 301 of a lot of headphone domains. That likely hurt too.
• Much of my internal links aren't perfect in terms of link text. I am thinking that I need to HONE that in with this project. For example: we reviewed a Sony XYZ 123 then that should be the EXACT link. Not "Sony XYZ 123 reviewed" or any other add-ons to the link. Keep it pure right?
• Even if a third level content page like one of these reviews doesn't have say a 50/100 incoming link - the juice that flows to it from the main page and the category page is SOMETHING right? So can it hurt to add the number of internal cross links back to these pages? Is there a point when you have too many internal links?
• How do affiliate links factor in to this overall link strategy? I often have a few but only ones that could get good results.

I want to get this right as it takes DAYS to do this work on WordPress. It isn't hard - just slow.

MANY MANY MANY THANKS in advance for your thoughts on this matter.

If there is anything that I can help you with in return - let me know.

Jerry - 90210SEO

90210SEO said:

I pimp these links hard as you can imagine.

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what do you mean??

90210SEO said:

• I recently removed some internal content links too. Other reviews. Some were category links. This I fear was a mistake and I am considering going back in (very likely to do this) and put some back.

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so, the question - I assume - is whether you should put these links back?

Well, in general it's good to have internal links to relevant stuff within the same silo, so I would put them back. But this is regarding the internal links part only, I don't think it will help regain the lost rankings (if you're 100% certain that you have indeed been affected by the last google update). It might help, but usually it doesn't. Most google updates target very specific things and it's almost never the internal links, although I do reckon that internal linking is an important on-page SEO thing you can do.

Anyway, the point is: put the links back if you're scared of something, but don't expect to regain the lost rankings. You need to check what the google update that's affected you has targeted and fix that.

90210SEO said:

• Perhaps it was the algo update that is hurting traffic, maybe it is seasonality but the fall has been steep.

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there's no seasonality for audio gear. People buy and need headphones and speakers all day long, every day and every year, so this is out of the question. Most likely you've been affected by a google update like you said, or it could also be the 301 redirect like you mentioned.

90210SEO said:

I lost one (I didn't control it) 301 of a lot of headphone domains. That likely hurt too.

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I don't know what exactly you mean by "I lost", but if that 301 was good (as in, highly relevant and highly authoritative) then yeah, that can indeed influence your rankings.

90210SEO said:

• Much of my internal links aren't perfect in terms of link text. I am thinking that I need to HONE that in with this project. For example: we reviewed a Sony XYZ 123 then that should be the EXACT link. Not "Sony XYZ 123 reviewed" or any other add-ons to the link. Keep it pure right?

Click to expand...

nah, it doesn't really matter. What you want to pay attention to is not overdo exact and partial match anchors as this is one of the 1st (and easiest) things that google can penalize for.... Although, this is valid for external links, I'm not sure that it applies to internal ones too, but to keep it extra safe just mix and match the anchors so that you don't have more than 10% of any anchor. Just for the extra safety

90210SEO said:

• Even if a third level content page like one of these reviews doesn't have say a 50/100 incoming link - the juice that flows to it from the main page and the category page is SOMETHING right?

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by "third level" you're referring to the URL structure, right? Like, for example, site.com/slug1/slug2 where slug2 is the 3rd level. Is that correct?

If the links that link to this page are not nofollow then yeah, this page should indeed get some of the link juice. How much of it, I can't say as the amount of page rank (link juice) that flows into pages is probably decided by a complicated mathematical formula, just like with most google algo-related things, and I don't know this formula.

But you definitely get link juice through each link that points to this page as long as - like I said - there is no nofollow tag appended to those links.

90210SEO said:

So can it hurt to add the number of internal cross links back to these pages?

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what are cross links??

90210SEO said:

Is there a point when you have too many internal links?

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hmm, this one I'm not sure about... but if I were to guess I would say that you can have as many links as you want, but the problem is that you might confuse and annoy your visitors if every word was linked to something, I definitely would be deterred by this and would consider it spam

90210SEO said:

• How do affiliate links factor in to this overall link strategy? I often have a few but only ones that could get good results.

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if you nofollow all affiliate links (and even cloak them) you're good from a SEO perspective. Meaning, you won't lose rankings because of authority leaking. But the problem is that google might not like it if you have many affiliate links on a page and when I say "many" I mean even 2 of them

Google, in their neverending bastardy, hate anyone else making money but them, so they're going to punish you for making money with every chance they have. I remember a few years ago that having "too many" affiliate links on a page was really detrimental to your rankings, but I'm not sure whether this rule still holds true today. But, to be safe, just use 1 affiliate links per page (and make sure to cloak and nofollow it) and you're good! If you have a lot of content on the page (say, 5000 words for example) I think you can add 1-2 more links, but it might still be risky. I guess you'll have to test this yourself as I really don't know what whims google has for each site....

90210SEO said:

I want to get this right as it takes DAYS to do this work on WordPress. It isn't hard - just slow.

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aren't you using internal linking plugins?? There are plugins for this that automatically interlink all relevant pages within their silo, so you don't have to do this manually.

Besides, as soon as you add a new page you'll have to link to it (and from it) from other pages within the silo, so internal linking will be an ongoing process anyway, you can't just "get it right" and then forget about it

Internal link plugins will take care of building semantic and relevant links that are long tail keyword based.

I redid EVERYTHING on my consumer electronics site.

I now control the keywords in my links and that seems to help.

I am being MUCH MORE LIBERAL with my internal linking. I am adding more and more "no follow" links for external but not all.

With that said, traffic isn't booming but we are on an increasing trend despite very down (seasonal) times. Readership historically comes back when college football is back on TV.

For effective internal linking, use descriptive anchor text, link to relevant pages, and create a logical site structure. Prioritize important pages with frequent links and regularly update links to keep them relevant and functional.

Saram Zulifqar SEO said:

For effective internal linking, use descriptive anchor text, link to relevant pages, and create a logical site structure. Prioritize important pages with frequent links and regularly update links to keep them relevant and functional.

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thank you for your input!

It sounds like you're afraid that recent modifications to your internal linking strategy have had a negative impact on your traffic.

Particularly with the loss of a significant 301 redirect and the possibility of algorithm tweaks or seasonality.

You're thinking about fine-tuning your internal link content and adding back some links, but you're also wondering how affiliate links fit into the broader strategy.

My first suggest for you don't do the internal links with any seo tools. Make it manually and use some LSI keywords to make it cover. Yes, relevant page to internal is the best practice