What is the impact of internal links on SEO?

 Internal link refers to a hyperlink to another page on the same website, which may appear in the navigation bar at the top of the page, the sidebar, the footer at the bottom, or the text or image of the text link. In the example shown in the figure below, there is a text hyperlink in the text of the page example.com/a pointing to example.com/b.

the hyperlink in the source code will look like the following:

The impact of internal links on SEO

(1) As the path of the search engine crawler inspection site

The search engine finds the next page by tracing the link in the page, and continues to find the page through the link on the next page. This series of processes is also called "search."
In order for a web page to be indexed properly after being retrieved, the premise is that the crawler of the search engine must be able to obtain information about the content of the web page through the link, that is to say, to ensure that the web page can be reached through the appropriate hyperlink, which can effectively reduce the unintended content of the web page. The condition of being included.
Take the following figure as an example. The crawling spider enters page A through external links, and then continues to crawl pages B, C, and D through the links in the webpage. Since there is no link to page E and F, the crawling spider just The content on the page cannot be retrieved, or even its existence is not known.

(2) As a guide to help users and search engines understand the site structure

Deploying internal links is actually building the structure of the entire website, categorizing related content together, and establishing clear and easy-to-understand divisions to help users find the information they are looking for. For shopping sites like Amazon, the top navigation bar will use product categories as the link structure, and each category will be linked to individual products belonging to that category. This not only facilitates users to find products, but also helps search engines. Understand that those product pages are related to each other.

(3) Pass web page weight

Search engines will understand the structure of the site through links. At the same time, they will judge the importance of each page based on the status of these links, which is what everyone calls weight. Generally speaking, because most of the time, the homepage has the most backlinks, so it is considered to have a higher weight. With the depth of the website, the weight of pages that require more clicks to reach will be relatively lower.
We know how Google’s PageRank formula was calculated a long time ago. Assuming that there are 5 links on the A page, the PageRank score of the A page will be divided into five equal parts and sent to the five linked pages. However, PageRank is a long, long time ago algorithm. Now Google’s algorithm has undergone many changes, but similar concepts have not completely disappeared. By changing the position of the webpage in the site structure, it is still possible to change its importance. Degree, and the ability to change its ranking.

Ideal website structure and internal link establishment policy

(1) Tree-like website structure

There is a tree structure, or pyramid structure, that is generally recognized as a better website structure in the SEO industry. It looks like the picture below. The top, the top of the pyramid is the home page.

Through this structure, the number of clicks required from the homepage to each page can be kept at a low number, which facilitates the transmission of weights, and it is less likely that a webpage needs to be reached through many clicks.
In addition, this structure is also conducive to the aggregation of related content. The homepage is linked to the first-level category page, and the category page is then linked to various pages related to the category, and the related content pages are placed in a branch. , Which is conducive to the promotion of the ranking of the classification page.
 

(2) Taking the user as the starting point

When discussing issues related to search engines, it is always inseparable from the consideration of user experience, and this is no exception.
The arrangement of links in a web page should make users feel relevant and useful. When the appearance of a link may make users feel confused and don't want to click, then it is time to think about whether the link appears appropriate.
A good internal link deployment should be able to provide users with help in navigating the site, and the links within the text should be related to the content of the page.
 

(3) Link to the upper category page

For blogs or product websites, it is recommended to add links to related categories on the bottom article pages or product pages. This can be executed through breadcrumb links, and at the same time, search engines and users can have a better understanding of your website structure. Clear understanding.

(4) Link to related articles/products

Through the interactive links of related articles or products, you can strengthen the relationship between pages and help search engines understand the structure of the site; on the other hand, it also allows users to be recommended and have the opportunity to read more pages.

(5) On the same page, do not use the same anchor text to connect to different pages

This should not be difficult to understand. Imagine that I placed two hyperlinks with "SEO" as the anchor text on this page, but each link to a different page. This situation is likely to confuse users. In this case, you can either carefully measure whether it is necessary to connect to two different pages, or differentiate the anchor text of the two links.

(6) Don't be too concerned about using rel="nofollow" in internal links

Using the rel="nofollow" attribute in internal links is a way of performing PageRank operations in the past (probably around 2007-2009). In 2009, Matt Cutts announced that Google had changed the algorithm to include internal links with nofollow attributes. The PageRank score passed by the page will also be divided equally.

And as mentioned in the above paragraph, PageRank is not as good as it was used as the main score algorithm in the initial development of Google.

And if there are really some pages you do not want to be included, you should directly use noindex, and the best way is to check whether the internal links on the page are necessary, and directly remove low-value content and unnecessary internal links.

 

To summarize briefly, although it is difficult to find the best internal linking method through an exact method, in terms of the overall structure of the website, it can move in the direction of a tree structure. When encountering problems related to internal links, users should be prioritized for consideration, such as whether the content of the webpage reached by following internal links is relevant, and whether this approach can bring better guidance to them. With this kind of thinking and natural arrangements, it should be possible to build a good basic structure of the website and internal links.