9 mistakes to correct immediately

Internal links are one of the most underutilized arrows in a site owner’s quiver.

Although inbound link building gets all the press, it is the proper use of internal links that can really move a site algorithmically when done strategically.

Google has been vocal about the importance of internal links for years.

Google’s John Mueller touched on this specifically in this 2022 Office Hours Hangout, where he called internal links “super critical to SEO success.”

As a website auditor who routinely touches multiple websites daily and hundreds of websites annually, I know firsthand how important internal linking is to website recovery and improvement.

In my experience, fixing these specific internal link errors results in stronger websites, easier indexing by Google, and higher rankings.

How many of these mistakes do you make?

Mistake 1: Non-descriptive anchor texts

One of the simplest things to understand about internal linking is this: we link to what we want to rank for.

Want to rank for “banana cream pie” and then use that anchor text or these close variations:

• “banana cream pie recipe”
• “Easy banana cream pie”
• “banana cream pie with instant pudding”
• “old fashioned banana cream pie”
• “no bake banana cream pie”
• “how to make a banana cream pie”

And yet, a link scan of a client site can routinely result in a large number of non-descriptive anchor texts like the following:

• “Click here”
• “Watch this”
• “Here”
• “Get this recipe”
• “My pie recipe”
• “This link”

Be descriptive when possible with internal links. Use anchor texts that accurately describe to the user and Google what exactly you are trying to index and rank.

This is not only good SEO, but it is also a good accessibility practice.

Nothing annoys someone using a screen reader more than hitting non-descriptive anchor texts that don’t communicate where the user is being sent via a click.

Mistake 2: Cannibalizing anchor text

We know that having clear, descriptive anchor texts is important to users and Google. But what happens when you use identical anchor texts on multiple posts or pages?

Let’s say you have four different chocolate chip recipes and used the anchor text “chocolate chip cookies” on all of them.

Congratulations! You’ve basically guaranteed that none of them will rank as competitively as possible for “chocolate chip cookies” and most likely won’t rank at all.

This is where the concept of internal linking cannibalization comes into play.

Google routinely limits what results from a site’s ranking for specific queries. This search diversity limit prevents any site from dominating the SERPs for the same target queries.

However, it is not difficult to correct this.

Sticking to the “chocolate cookies” example, focus on differentiating the internal links by varying the anchor texts.

Maybe one of the recipes is an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe, another is a double chocolate chip cookie recipe, and yet another is a brown sugar chocolate chip cookie recipe.

By working methodically to map and differentiate internal links and corresponding anchor texts to prevent shared anchor text cannibalization, all of these recipes can be ranked and ranked competitively.

It is a known fact in SEO that all links are not created equal.

In-content links, sidebar links, footer links, etc. all count as links, but some are more important than others.

A good rule of thumb is this: A link that gets clicked is always more powerful than a link that isn’t.

In the vast majority of cases, footer links are rarely clicked on and do not send much traffic.

Footer links are best used to publish About and Contact pages, links to main category pages, links to copyright and accessibility policies, and links to social media and location-specific information.

Unfortunately, spamming footers is a recent trend that has gained steam from publishers using blog support companies who are struggling to recover their sites from the recent HCU, Core and Spam Update hits.

If you come across a footer full of anchor text-rich links to posts and pages, it’s probably because the publisher was misinformed that footer links are a great way to increase site-wide authority.

However, the truth about footer links is clear: they look spammy and do not send a positive signal to Google.

Bottom line: Only place links in the footer that users expect to see. It will rarely be rich text for multi-column anchor text.

Error 4: Link to non-indexed content

In the early Wild Wild West days of digital marketing, we had a concept called PageRank sculpting.

The concept involved controlling the amount of link equity sent through pages on a website by selectively unfollowing links on those pages.

However, that practice has not worked for over a decade. Instead, when Google crawls a page and notices that a link on a page is nofollow, those links are ignored for algorithmic purposes.

Think of these nofollow links as a black hole on the page that just sucks the link equity and PageRank to nothing. You can’t get it back.

As such, it is important for internal link building and current visibility that we try not to link to non-indexed content on a site.

Otherwise we waste the internal link authority.

Mistake 5: Not fixing 404s and 503s

Nothing is more annoying to a user than visiting a page and hitting 404 or 503.

If a user navigates through your site and repeatedly hits a 404, one thing is guaranteed: that user is not coming back.

Even though Google has been saying for years that 404s are not a sign of low qualityif the problem is widespread and systemic, 404s can absolutely hinder the flow of PageRank and link equity through your site’s content.

It’s not hard to fix 404s and 503s. Your SEO Guide to Finding and Fixing Broken Internal Links covers the issue in detail.

If you’re a blogger, I recommend using the Broken Link Checker plugin or using tools like Semrush, Moz, Ahrefs, Clarity, or dozens of other options to crawl your site internally and fix these issues as they arise.

Mistake 6: Automating internal links

The use of automation in SEO is at a premium these days.

You can’t throw a stone and not hit an article that covers how simply installing the correct plugin or using a specific AI tool is all you need to take your SEO to amazing new heights.

For example, if you are a WordPress blogger, the Link Whisper plugin is a very popular internal linking option. However, you can’t use it to automate your link building, otherwise you’ll be spamming your own blog.

The paid version can be terrible in both the scope of its suggested link goals and the less than descriptive ways it warns you about linking within those goals.

In general, I am against all automated internal linking for the following reasons:

• You end up spamming your anchor texts. A tool that allows you to link every instance of chocolate chip cookies in a post does more harm than good. I see it daily.
• The tools ignore users. Understanding UX is very important with internal linking. We link when it makes sense for the users of a page. Tools rarely understand that.
• The linkage may not be strategic. You know your content best. Which posts to send users, over a tool, is always of crucial importance.

Again, I’m all for working smarter, not harder. But when it comes to internal linking, a slow and steady approach is always better than automation. I guarantee it.

Error 7: Internal permalink redirects

It’s not uncommon for websites that have been around for years to change their URLs at some point.

Sometimes these changes are simple, e.g. to change a URL slightly to add or remove keywords. Other times they are more detailed, e.g. to remove dates from your URLs and change your entire sitewide permalink structure.

Google has known for years that changing URLs should be avoided, especially if all you do is add or remove keywords.

But one of the biggest reasons to avoid changing URLs is that this creates internal permalink redirects. These extra server hops can reduce the flow of PageRank through the site and even affect page speed on a large scale.

For example, links to https://example.com/2022/02/sample-url.htm can be redirected to https://example.com/sample-url/ and links from https://example.com/sample -url can be redirected to https://example.com/sample-url/.

The problem with the above is that most site owners fail to do a “find and replace” and remove all the old internal links (with the previous URL permutation) to the new URL internal links (without the previous URL permutation).

This can result in dozens, if not hundreds, of internal redirects, which can greatly reduce a site’s bottom line quality.

To fix this, contact your host and have them scan your site to fix it on a large scale. You can also install a plugin like Search and Replace and do this yourself.

Mistake 8: Overlooking link placement

Not all links are equal.

It is generally understood that a content link, higher on the page, is the most powerful form of link for SEO purposes.

Of course you can have links on the sidebar, footer, in a link list, a breadcrumb or as an image; all of these links have value. But the content link placed higher on the page is usually the winner.

Why is this the case?

Google crawls a page from top to bottom: first the headline, then the body and everything else after that.

Google then renders the page and runs any JavaScript it finds at this point. This is also why it’s important not to have a ton of JavaScript on the page to slow things down, especially pushed out on the client side.

Additionally, as far back as 2016, Google has said that content links within the primary area of ​​a page are always treated as more relevant than those in the header, menu, footer, and sidebar.

For internal linking purposes, it is always a good idea to link naturally from the top of the page to the bottom. But location definitely matters.

Mistake 9: Orphan content pages

An orphan content page is an internal page that has no inbound internal links.

Repairing orphaned content pages is the epitome of low-hanging fruit for any website owner looking to improve their current visibility with Google and their bottom line SEO.

As a general rule, I recommend that pages have a minimum of 3-5 unique inbound links from related content and in many cases much more.

Finding and fixing orphaned content is not difficult. Orphaned content link reports are built into most website audit packages, including Semrush, Ahrefs, Sitebulb, Moz, and more.

You can also use the Link Whisper plugin mentioned earlier in this article. It has a simple ability to scan the entire website and then sort all your content by the number of incoming links.

Finally, you can use Yoast plugin (premium required), All-In-One SEO plugin or even RankMath (premium required), all of which have built-in tools to scan and display orphaned content pages and posts.

High-quality internal links are a vote of confidence for you

My late good friend Bill Slawski used to talk a lot about link trust.

He was a big believer that internal linking done correctly was imperative for search engines to understand the relationship between links, units and user satisfaction.

This link trust was necessary to rank your site and content competitively.

In the wake of relentless core, spam, and HCU updates, along with the rise of AI rankings, ranking a site effectively has never been more competitive than it is right now.

If you’re struggling to focus on where to put your SEO efforts in 2024, internal linking should be top-of-mind. It helps you communicate your site more effectively to Google.