Internal links are important for SEO because they help search engines understand the structure of a website and the relative importance of its pages. They also help to distribute link equity, or “link juice,” throughout a website, which can help to improve the search engine rankings of the linked-to pages. Additionally, internal links can help to keep visitors on a website longer by providing them with easy access to other relevant pages on the site.
Internal links are important for several reasons when it comes to SEO.
- They help search engines understand the structure of a website and the relative importance of its pages. By linking to other pages on your website, you are showing search engines which pages are most important and how they are related to one another.
- They help distribute link equity (or “link juice”) throughout a website. When a page is linked to by other pages on the site, it can receive more authority and trust from search engines, which can help to improve its search engine rankings.
- They can help to keep visitors on a website longer by providing them with easy access to other relevant pages on the site. This can also help to increase the overall engagement and satisfaction of the users with the website, which can also be a factor in rankings.
- They help search engines to crawl and index the website, by providing them with clear hierarchy of the website and hierarchy of pages, which can help to improve the visibility of the website in search results.
- They also can help to increase the website’s authority, by linking to higher-authority pages within the website.
It’s important to note that over-optimizing internal links, by artificially increasing their quantity or using irrelevant anchor text, can also be seen as manipulative and can lead to penalties from search engines.
