Internal Linking¶

System of internal link connections between pages. Covers linking types, SILO structure, pagination handling, anchor linking rules, and PageRank propagation.

Three Purposes of Internal Linking¶

Under crawl depth and indexation - ensures all pages are accessible to bots
Under anchors - keyword-bearing links to promoted pages
Under user (UX) - helps users navigate and find related content

Three Methods of Link Placement¶

Sitewide - appears on all/many pages (header, footer, menu)
Automatic - generated by CMS (breadcrumbs, listings, tags, pagination)
Manual - human-placed specific links (contextual, tag-based)

Automatic Internal Linking¶

Type	Description	Notes
Breadcrumbs	Path navigation links	Beautiful snippet with Schema.org micromarkup
Listings	Category pages link to all products	Core navigation
Product interlinking	Cross-product links	Set up correctly in CMS
Pagination	Page 1, 2, 3 of listing	Cannot hide from bots

Manual Internal Linking¶

Type	Description	Scope
Tags	Listing pages not in main menu	For most popular tags only
Contextual (anchor)	In-text keyword-anchored links	In-article cross-links

HTML Sitemap and Hub Pages¶

Purpose: Primary instrument for optimizing crawl depth and indexation.

Rules: - Up to 1,000 internal links per page - no problem - Maximum 5,000 internal links per page - Can have multiple sitemaps for large sites - Segment by section or page type

Types: - HTML sitemap - one page linking to all important pages - Hub pages - thematic hub pages linking to related cluster of pages

Homepage Linking Methods¶

Popular categories - direct links to important subcategories
Expanded mega-menu - direct links to all main categories, subcategories, frequent tags. Must be accessible WITHOUT JavaScript and CSS (direct HTML links)
Popular cities - for regional sites

Anchor Internal Linking¶

Purpose: Promotion via in-text anchored keyword links.

Warning: Do carefully or not at all.

Rules for Large Sites (Automatic)¶

Link "similar to similar" (same topic context)
Create anchor-to-URL table with link count per anchor
System finds donor pages automatically; links placed permanently
1 acceptor receives links from N donors with different anchors
No duplicate anchor-URL pairs on one donor page
No duplicate anchors (exception: HF queries, 2-3 max)
No more than 4-5 outbound links per page
No more than 10 inbound links per page

Anchor List for Interlinking¶

If semantics collected with good completeness -> it IS the anchor list
Do NOT use anchors with commercial words: "buy", "price", "cheap"

Manual Contextual Interlinking (Small Sites)¶

From blog/informational section to commercial service pages
Natural text context with anchor matching target query

SILO Structure¶

Definition: Grouping semantics by meaning into isolated (by internal links) clusters/sections. SILO = a structure of internal linking, not just URL structure.

When SILO Works¶

Google: must-have for topical authority
Yandex: works poorly (not recommended as primary strategy)

Building SILO¶

Analyze competitors - do they use SILO?
Define central hub theme
Define supporting topics
Collect and cluster queries
Prepare content
Link: hub page -> supporting pages; supporting pages link back to hub only (no cross-linking between silos)

SILO URL Structure¶

site.com/silo1/
site.com/silo1/theme1
site.com/silo1/theme2
site.com/silo2/
site.com/silo2/theme1

Best For¶

Informational article sites
Multi-service sites with multiple professional areas

Pagination¶

Rules¶

Cannot hide pagination pages from bots (must be crawlable)
Do NOT duplicate page 1 with parameter (/category/?page=1 same as /category/)
Do NOT output link to current page
Canonical on page 1 from pagination: not recommended

Deoptimization (Required)¶

From page 2 onward: - Add page number to Title: [Main H1] - Page 2 - Add page number to H1 and Description - Remove SEO text from pages 2+

Search Engine Differences¶

Yandex: rel canonical pointing to main category page
Google: ?page=N URL parameter; each pagination page has its own canonical

Technical Requirements¶

Show links to first 5 and last 5 pages; for >30 pages show intermediate values (10, 20, 30)
/category/?PAGEN_1=1 -> 301 redirect to /category/
Current page number = inactive link
Non-existent page numbers -> 404
Invalid page numbers -> 301 redirect to page 1

PageRank Propagation¶

Principles: - Weight passed via link depends on number of other outbound links (split equally) - Damping coefficient exists - Yandex: works poorly (deprecated); Google: classic PR formula rarely used directly but principle applies - Practical: homepage has highest PR -> link to important pages -> they pass weight further