Navigation & Internal Links
Google learns page importance and topical relationships almost entirely through internal links. Learn the SILO linking rules and how to find orphan pages.
What you'll learn
- Understand why internal linking is how Google infers page importance and topic
- Learn the core SILO linking rules: within-SILO first, cross-SILO only when justified
- Know how to find orphan pages and why they matter
- Understand anchor text rules for internal links
Internal Links Teach Google What Matters
Without a plan, internal links happen by accident — mostly through navigation menus and whatever the CMS auto-generates. A deliberate internal linking plan is what tells Google which pages are most important (Hub/Pillar pages should receive the most internal links) and which pages belong to the same topic (SILO).
Core Linking Rules
- Top-down and bottom-up within a SILO: Hub/Pillar pages link down to their Spoke pages; Spoke pages link back up to the Pillar and sideways to closely related Spokes.
- Cross-SILO links only with real semantic justification: linking between unrelated SILOs "confuses" Google about what each SILO is actually about.
- Anchor text must match the destination topic: never "click here" or "read more" — use descriptive anchors that match the linked page's subject.
- Context matters as much as the link itself: per TopicalDrift research, a link surrounded by off-topic text can be worse than no link at all — it confuses Google's understanding of both pages.
Finding Orphan Pages
An orphan page has zero internal links pointing to it from anywhere on the site. Google rarely indexes or ranks orphan pages well because it has no path to discover them through normal crawling.
Turning Findings Into a Ticket
A navigation/internal-linking ticket should specify: which orphan pages need links, from which pages, with what anchor text, and why (which SILO, which target keyword). Vague instructions like "improve internal linking" produce vague implementation.
Key Takeaways
- Internal links are Google's primary signal for page importance and topical grouping
- Links should flow within a SILO first; cross-SILO links need explicit semantic justification
- Anchor text should describe the destination topic, never "click here" or "read more"
- Orphan pages (zero internal links) are found by cross-referencing a crawl against the sitemap and Ahrefs
- A good internal linking ticket names specific source pages, target pages, and anchor text — not vague instructions