How much do internal links help?
-
So I noticed in Site Explorer that my competitors mostly have internal links all over point to a page with the term I want to rank for, while very little external links.
How much do internal links help? Should I have a link somewhere on every page pointing to my target page with the keyword, and then grab some external links?
I link internally only when I see relevant, but maybe I'm not doing it enough.
Looking forward to replies!
-
Internal linking is so much more important now especially in a post Panda and Penguin world. Do it wrong and you could seem spammy to Google.
Here is a great video that will help give you a better idea
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/smarter-internal-linking-whiteboard-friday
-
Hey Hilary
Internal links are important primarily in that they help to indicate the standing of a page within your site.
So, a page that has only one link pointing to it, is fairly unimportant. A page that has has a link from every page is pretty important.
Beyond that, we have the internal anchor text to consider but you are really not going to move the dial a great degree with internal anchors so don't do something that ruins the chances of someone clicking the link for some perceived SEO benefit.
As with everything SEO there are a lot of moving parts and there is no one size fits all answer to this kind of question. If the site is an authority, then you may be able to really move the dial with internal links but if it is a new site then they are probably going to do very little.
If these pages are your main service pages then get them in the navigation so you can illustrate just how important they are in the context of all the other pages and then, to really give them a boost, you need some externals.
Again, a link from a really popular or well linked blog piece could add more value (from clicks as well as the SEO angle).
This is a great and relevant read:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whats-better-on-page-seo-or-link-building
Hope that helps!
Marcus
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Decent domain authority score with no links other than their own linking back to them. How is that possible?
Hello everyone I just spotted the following 'abnormality' while doing a little link analysis with Open Search Explorer. I checked out a site that has a domain authority score of 35, when the only domain linking back to them is ''the site itself'. They happen to have a domain authority of 35 themselves, but no other links pointing back to them apart from their own and yet they have the same authority as other sites with twice the amount of content and an actual backlink profile. How is that possible? 🙂 Links and authority scores, stills baffles me...
Competitive Research | | Hermski0 -
How much time takes Google to Index a page in the search?
Hello all, I have created a page and published it 2 days ago and it does not appear in the Google Search.How much time can usually/on average take to index a page by Google in order to appear in the search results of a web search? I have check the Google Webmaster tools and neither no urls have been reported to be blocked nor the content should be blocked. Thank you very much, Best regards, Antonio
Competitive Research | | aalcocer20030 -
Only 4 Internal Followed Links
Hello , i compared our (www.bighunter.net) and competitor pages. Only 4 internal Followed Links are in result page . I don't understand why Thanks for any answer
Competitive Research | | lbecarelli0 -
Tool to compare which links competition has but i don't?
Is there a tool that I can use that will show me a list of my competition's links that I don't have?
Competitive Research | | ballhogjoni0 -
Track Back Problems, please help!
Hi there The majority of website errors are trackback, similar to this? http://www.footballfriendsonline.com/transfer-gossip/trackback/11592555 I use the platform squarespace.com and not quiet sure how to resolve this error? Any help would be much appreciated for this seo ameuter! thanks
Competitive Research | | footballfriends0 -
Link checking tool
I am trying to find the number of back links received from a partner for different pages of the site that I am currently working on. Site has several thousand pages. Does anybody know any tool that can pull the links to entire site from a particular source? Thanks.
Competitive Research | | gmk15670 -
SEOmoz total links fluxuations
I'm analyzing my clients and competitor back links and are noticing alot of up and down fluxuations. For example last month we had 1400 back links, last week 1350 back links, and today 1450 back links. Also, one competitor went from 25,000 to 2,700 in the space of a few weeks. My question is how can I explain to the client that their back links are going down when they are paying for a back link building service (100 back links per month). Thank you for your time.
Competitive Research | | SharpKiwi0 -
Should I pursue this LINK?
I can get a link from this site, but it has a DA=39, Dmr=3.37, Dmt=3.39 and a Page Rank=0
Competitive Research | | b4tv0