Internal Linking Strategy: Topic Clusters, Anchors and Orphans

Internal links are the one ranking lever you fully control. You need nobody's permission and no budget. They're also how Google finds most of your pages in the first place. Yet on most small sites the linking is accidental: a menu, a footer and a "recent posts" widget. This guide shows how to plan internal links on purpose, write anchor text that helps, and find the pages your site has left stranded.

Why internal links matter

Google's SEO Starter Guide says Google "primarily finds pages through links from other pages it already crawled." Internal links do three jobs:

1. Discovery. If no page links to a URL, Google mostly depends on your sitemap to find it, and treats it as unimportant.
2. Context. Anchor text and the text around it tell Google what the target page is about.
3. Priority. Pages that get many links from strong pages, such as your homepage and popular posts, are treated as more important than pages buried four clicks deep with one link.

Google's guidance is simple: "Every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site."

Navigational vs editorial links

Not all internal links do the same work.

Navigation tells Google what your main sections are. Editorial links are where strategy comes in. A sentence like "if your score drops after a theme change, check for render-blocking resources" carries context no menu can give.

Keep the main menu focused. Linking 150 pages from a mega menu makes every link look the same and dilutes the signal. Put your core services or categories in the menu and let editorial links reach deeper pages.

Build topic clusters

A topic cluster is a group of pages on one subject:

• One pillar page covers the broad topic and targets the main term, such as "website speed".
• Several cluster pages each go deep on one subtopic and target more specific queries, such as "improve LCP", "fix CLS" or "reduce TTFB".

The linking pattern:

1. The pillar links to every cluster page.
2. Every cluster page links back to the pillar with descriptive anchor text.
3. Cluster pages link to each other where it genuinely helps the reader.
4. Links across clusters only where the topics really overlap.

                 [Website speed pillar]
              /        |         |        \
     [Improve LCP] [Fix INP] [Fix CLS] [Reduce TTFB]
           \___________/         \_________/
          cross-links where genuinely related

This makes it obvious to people and crawlers which page is your main page for the broad term. It also prevents two pages from competing for the same query, which we cover in keyword cannibalization.

A practical way to plan clusters

1. List your pages in a spreadsheet with their target query.
2. Group them by topic. Each group with three or more pages is a cluster. If you're starting from a keyword export rather than a page list, our keyword grouper does a first pass for you.
3. Choose or write the pillar for each group.
4. Add a "Links to" and "Linked from" column and fill in the gaps.

Anchor text that helps

Google says good anchor text is "descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to the page that it's on and to the page it links to." In practice:

<!-- Weak: tells nobody anything -->
<a href="/services/seo-audit/">click here</a>
<a href="/services/seo-audit/">read more</a>

<!-- Over-optimized: looks manipulative, reads badly -->
<a href="/services/seo-audit/">best cheap seo audit services seo audit company</a>

<!-- Good: descriptive and natural -->
<a href="/services/seo-audit/">our technical SEO audit service</a>

Guidelines:

• Read the anchor on its own. If it makes no sense out of context, make it more specific.
• Vary it naturally. Exact-match anchors on every internal link look unnatural. Use variations and partial matches.
• Don't send one anchor to two pages. If "SEO audit" points at three different URLs across your site, you're telling Google three pages are about the same thing.
• Image links use alt text as their anchor. A linked logo or banner with an empty alt is a link with no anchor text.
• Avoid long strings of links next to each other. Give each link surrounding context.

Make sure links are crawlable

Google can reliably follow only <a> elements with an href attribute:

<!-- Crawlable -->
<a href="/pricing">See pricing</a>

<!-- Not reliably crawlable -->
<span onclick="location.href='/pricing'">See pricing</span>
<a href="javascript:goTo('pricing')">See pricing</a>
<button data-url="/pricing">See pricing</button>

This catches JavaScript-heavy sites, filters, "load more" buttons and some page builders. If a link only works through a click handler, Google may never find the target.

Don't put rel="nofollow" on internal links to "sculpt" PageRank. It doesn't help. All it does is weaken the signal to your own pages.

Find and fix orphan pages

An orphan page is a page that no other page on your site links to. Common sources:

• Landing pages built for ad campaigns
• Old blog posts that fell off paginated archives
• Products removed from categories but still live
• Pages that only appear in the XML sitemap

How to find them:

1. Export all URLs from your XML sitemap, analytics (pages with sessions) and Search Console (pages with impressions).
2. Crawl the site from the homepage, following links only.
3. Any URL in step 1 that the crawl in step 2 didn't find is an orphan.

What to do with each one:

• Valuable page: link to it from its pillar and two or three related pages, using descriptive anchors.
• Outdated page with backlinks or traffic: 301 it to the closest current page.
• No value: remove it (404/410) and take it out of the sitemap.

Orphaned and weakly linked pages often end up as "Discovered – currently not indexed" in Search Console. See our guide to that status.

Click depth

Click depth is the number of clicks from the homepage to a page. Important pages should be reachable in about three clicks. Ways to shorten long paths:

• Link to key categories from the homepage.
• Add breadcrumbs.
• Use pillar pages as hubs.
• Use numbered pagination instead of only "next" links on large archives.

Maintenance workflow

Internal linking isn't a one-off job. Build it into publishing:

1. Before you publish: link from the new page to its pillar and one or two related pages.
2. Right after you publish: add links to the new page from two or three existing, relevant pages. This step is the one people skip, and it matters most.
3. Quarterly: recheck for orphans, broken internal links and internal links that hit redirects. Point them straight at the final URL. See broken links and redirect chains.

Frequently asked questions

How many internal links should a page have?

There's no ideal number. Google says only that a very large number of links is a sign to trim. Link wherever a reader would benefit, which is usually a handful of editorial links in a typical article, plus your navigation.

Do footer and sidebar links count?

Yes. They help discovery and show structure. Because they repeat on every page, they say less about any single page than an editorial link inside relevant content does. Use them for core pages, not as your main linking strategy.

Should I use exact-match keywords in internal anchor text?

Descriptive anchors that include the topic are good, and internal links aren't treated with the same suspicion as manipulative external links. Still, keep the wording natural and varied, and avoid stuffing keywords. Google lists keyword-stuffed anchor text as a spam practice.

Are links in JavaScript menus crawlable?

Yes, if the rendered HTML has proper <a href> elements. Links that only work through onclick handlers or buttons may not be followed. Check the rendered HTML in the URL Inspection tool to see what Google gets.

What to do next

Pick your five most important commercial pages and count how many editorial links they get from elsewhere on the site. If any have fewer than three, add contextual links from related posts this week. Run a free audit to check a page's internal links for broken ones. For a full picture, the paid whole-site crawl finds orphan pages, compares your sitemap with crawled URLs, and suggests internal links for weakly linked pages.

Sources

• Google Search Central: Link best practices for Google
• Google Search Central: SEO Starter Guide
• Google Search Central: Build and submit a sitemap