What Google says
We read Google's pages on 9 October 2026. They say Google uses links to find new pages to crawl and to judge what a page is about. The starter guide says links are a great way to connect users and search engines to other parts of your site.
- At least one link in: every page you care about should have at least one link from another page on your site.
- In context: link to related pages inside the text, so readers and Google can see how pages fit together.
- No fixed number: Google says there is no ideal number of links per page. If you think a page has too many, it probably does.
- Real links: Google can generally follow a link only if it is an anchor element with an href address. Links added with JavaScript work if they use the same markup. Google lists other forms, such as a span with an href or an anchor with only an onclick, as not recommended.
A made-up example
A furniture maker in Moradabad has a blog post on how to choose a sofa. The post mentions sofa sets, sofa repair and a size chart.
- Before: the post has no links. The sofa repair page has no links from any other page, so only the sitemap leads to it.
- After: the post links to the sofa category page with the words sofa sets, and to the repair page with the words sofa repair service. The size chart gets a link too.
Now each page is reachable from another page, and each link says what the visitor will find. Some SEO (search engine optimisation) writers call a page with no links to it an orphan page.
Anchor text and spacing
The clickable words matter. Google asks for anchor text that is descriptive, reasonably short and relevant to both pages. It advises against chaining several links together with little text between them. Read more under anchor text.
How to check your internal links
The Links report in Google Search Console lists the top linked pages from within your own site, and the pages that link to a given page. Google says the report shows a sample and is not a full list. For a full picture, a crawl tool can map every link on your site.
Things we do not claim
Some SEO guides say internal links pass authority or build topical authority. We did not find those words on the Google pages we read. What Google does say is that its systems understand how pages link to each other, and that this helps it decide what pages are about.
Common mistakes
- Leaving important pages with no link from any other page.
- Using click here or read more as the link text.
- Linking in a way Google may not follow, such as a button that only runs a script.
- Stuffing a page with so many links that it is hard to read.
- Leaving links that point to old addresses after a move. Update them, and see 301 redirect.
Related terms
- Backlink: a link to your site from another site.
- Anchor text: the visible, clickable words of a link.
- Content cluster: a group of linked pages on one topic.
- Pillar page: a main page on a topic that links to deeper pages.
- Crawl budget: how many pages a search engine will fetch from your site in a given time.
To plan the links across your site, see our SEO work, or begin with an SEO audit.
Sources
- Google Search Central, "Link best practices for Google" (developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/links-crawlable), last updated 10 December 2025, read 9 October 2026.
- Google Search Central, SEO Starter Guide (developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide), read 9 October 2026.
- Google Search Central, "A guide to Google Search ranking systems" (developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ranking-systems-guide), read 9 October 2026.
- Google Search Console Help, Links report (support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9049606), read 9 October 2026.
