Short answer: An internal link goes from one page of your site to another page of the same site. Google uses links to find new pages to crawl and as a signal of what each page is about. Every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page, with anchor text that says where it leads.
Links Google can follow and links it can’t
| Link | What it is | What Google says |
|---|---|---|
<a href="/products"> | A normal link with an href | Recommended |
<a href="/cart"><img src="…" alt="…"></a> | An image link | It uses the alt text as anchor text |
<a routerLink="products"> | A link with no href | Not recommended |
<span href="…"> | Not an a element | Not recommended |
<a onclick="goto(…)"> | A script opens the page | Not recommended |
<a href="javascript:…"> | An href that isn’t a web address | Not recommended |
Google can generally crawl a link only when it’s an a element with an href attribute, and most links in other formats won’t be parsed. Links that JavaScript adds to the page also work, as long as they use that markup.
From Google Search Central, “Link best practices for Google”, read November 3, 2026.
Why internal links matter
Google finds new pages through links, so a page that no other page links to is harder to find, for Google and for your visitors. Google says every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site.
Think about which of your other pages would help a reader understand a given page, and link to them in context. Careful anchor text on those links helps people and Google make sense of your site and find your other pages.
Anchor text that says where a link goes
Anchor text is the visible text of a link. Good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant to both pages. “Click here”, “read more” and “website” tell the reader nothing about the next page.
Read the anchor text on its own, out of context. If you can’t tell what the page is about, it needs a better description. Don’t cram keywords into it either: keyword stuffing breaks Google’s spam policies.
The words before and after a link matter too. Avoid a row of links side by side, because readers can’t tell them apart and each link loses its context. For an image link, Google reads the image’s alt text as the anchor text, so write it the same way.
How to add internal links to your site
- List the pages you care about most, such as your services, your contact page and your best guides.
- Find the ones with few links from your other pages, in the Links report of Search Console or with a crawler.
- For each one, look for older pages on the same topic where a reader would want to go next.
- Add the link inside a sentence, where it helps the reader understand the page.
- Write anchor text that says what the target page is about.
- Use a normal link with an href, pointing to the page’s canonical address.
- Open the page as a visitor, click the link and check that it lands where you meant.
What we found when we counted our own links
At 12:17 AM on November 3 we counted, as a visitor, the links to each of the 262 pages in our sitemap. 108 had fewer than 10 links from our other pages. Our guide to LinkedIn company pages had only 2: the guides index and its own Spanish version.
Our two newest guides had 65 links each, almost all from the “More guides” list at the end of every guide. Our XML sitemap guide, published the same night, had 4, because newer guides had already pushed it off that list. One of the four is a link inside the text of an older guide, and that one stays.
So when we publish a guide, we also link to it from the text of an older guide on the same topic.
Before you publish a page
- At least one other page of your site links to it.
- Each link is an a element with an href.
- The anchor text says what the target page is about.
- No link reads “click here” or “read more”.
- Links sit inside sentences, not in a row.
- Each link points to the canonical address.
RememberEvery page you care about needs a link from another page of your site, inside a sentence, with anchor text that says where it goes.
If you want us to find the pages on your site that nobody links to, see our technical SEO service.
Quick answers about internal links
How many internal links should a page have?
Google says there’s no magical ideal number of links for a page, and that if you think it’s too much, it probably is. A useful check is whether a reader would want to follow each link from that spot.
Is anchor text the same as link text?
Yes. Google uses both names for the visible text of a link, which tells people and Google something about the page you’re linking to. If a link is empty, Google can fall back on the title attribute, and for an image link it uses the image’s alt text.
Should I add nofollow to my internal links?
Google’s link guide keeps nofollow for links you don’t trust. Paid links can use sponsored and links your users add can use ugc. A link you place yourself from one of your pages to another fits none of those cases.
Can Google follow links that JavaScript adds?
Yes, as long as the script inserts a normal a element with an href attribute. If JavaScript writes the anchor text, Google suggests checking with the URL Inspection tool that the text is in the rendered HTML.
Does Search Console show all my internal links?
No. The Links report shows a sample of internal and external links, groups pages by their canonical URL and limits tables to 1,000 rows. Use it to check which pages are linked the most, not as a full count.
Sources
Read on November 3, 2026. Google Search Central: Link best practices for Google and How to specify a canonical URL with rel="canonical" and other methods. Search Console Help: Links report. Our own case: the internal links to the 262 pages of our sitemap, counted on November 3, 2026.