A sitemap tells the engine which pages exist. Internal links tell it how they are connected and which ones matter most. A site with a good network of internal links lets the crawler reach every piece of content in a few steps and clearly conveys the hierarchy between pages. A site with poor or random connections leaves important pages on the margins, even if they are listed in the sitemap.
Why internal links matter
Internal links perform three jobs:
- discovery: the crawler finds new pages by following links from the ones it already knows;
- priority: a page that receives many internal links, from important pages, is perceived as more relevant;
- context: the link text describes the topic of the destination page.
The sitemap helps with discovery, but it doesn't replace the other two jobs.
Click depth
Click depth is the minimum number of links to follow, starting from the home page, to reach a page.
| Depth | Example |
|---|---|
| 0 | home page |
| 1 | category pages in the main menu |
| 2 | subcategories or featured articles |
| 3 | individual products or articles |
| 6 or more | content reachable only by browsing long archives |
There is no universal threshold, but in general deeper pages are visited less often. If a shop's main products sit at depth seven, because they can only be reached through categories and pagination pages, there's a structural problem.
Ways to reduce depth:
- categories and subcategories with a balanced number of items;
- direct links from the home page to the main sections and content;
- pagination with links at intervals, not just "next";
- hub pages that group the content on a topic;
- contextual links between related articles.
Orphan pages
An orphan page is a page that exists, may be in the sitemap or receive traffic from campaigns, but receives no internal links at all. They arise in many ways:
- landing pages created for a campaign and never linked;
- articles dropped from the menu after a redesign;
- products removed from their category but left online;
- pages reachable only through internal search or filters.
The crawler may discover them through the sitemap or external links, but perceives them as unimportant. If an orphan page has value, it should be linked; if it doesn't, consider removing it.
How to find them
Orphan pages can't be found with a simple crawl, because the crawler, by following links, by definition never reaches them. You need a comparison:
- crawl the site starting from the home page and get the list of reachable URLs;
- collect the list of URLs known from other sources: sitemaps, analytics, webmaster tools, server logs;
- URLs present in the second list but not in the first are orphans.
Many desktop crawlers do this comparison automatically if you connect sitemaps and external data sources.
Link text
The clickable text, or anchor text, should describe the destination:
- "guide to DNS configuration" conveys the topic;
- "click here" or "read more" conveys nothing.
There's no need to repeat the exact same keyword in every link: natural variations are more useful and more readable. For clickable images, the alternative text plays the role of the anchor.
Menus, footers and automatic modules
- Main menu: it should contain the truly important sections, not everything. A menu with hundreds of items dilutes emphasis and weighs on performance.
- Footer: useful for service pages, but a footer with dozens of keyword links looks artificial.
- Breadcrumbs: excellent for structure, because they connect each page to its parent levels.
- Related articles or products: automatic modules that create lateral connections; they should ideally be generated server-side and present in the HTML.
In my work, one of the most revealing checks is sorting pages by number of inbound internal links: often the most important commercial pages have fewer links than marginal pages such as "privacy" or "contact".
Links the crawler doesn't follow
Check that links are real <a> elements with an href attribute. Links generated only on click, menus loaded after an interaction or internal links with rel="nofollow" reduce the network's effectiveness.
In short
- Internal links serve page discovery, priority and context.
- Reduce the click depth of important pages with hubs and direct links.
- Find orphan pages by comparing the crawl with sitemaps, analytics and logs.
- Use descriptive, varied link text, not "click here".
- Check how many important pages actually receive internal links.
