Internal linking what. What is linking

Linking is...

...linking pages through links. Links can be placed both from one site to another and within a site.

There are external and internal.

External is the linking of pages of several sites, when a link from one leads to another.
Internal linking is the linking of pages within one site. It is one of the most important factors internal optimization. This is due to the fact that the static weight of the page is transmitted through links; accordingly, with the help of well-configured linking, you can improve rankings for high-frequency, mid-range and especially low-frequency queries.

Let's talk about the internal one.

How to properly link a website: the basics

When distributing requests, you must adhere to the following rule: all high-frequency requests go to the main page, high-frequency requests go to secondary pages (sections), and low-frequency requests go to third-level pages (product cards, articles, etc.).

There are three basic linking schemes:

“Ring” - all the weight is transferred to low-frequency requests, and they, in turn, are interconnected.

“Star” - uniform distribution of weight throughout the site. When the main page, sections (categories) and products are on promotion.

“Ladder” (Hierarchical) - weight is transferred to mid-frequency queries. Promotion of sections and categories.

1. Cross-links. Links from the site bar, horizontal menu and the footer should lead to all the most basic sections and subsections. Moreover, it is desirable that they be accessible not only from the main page, but also from other pages.
2. Bread crumbs. Not only helps the user not to get lost on your site, but also transfers weight from child pages to parent pages. And if you use them keywords, then you can also increase relevance.
3. Link from logo. Place a link from your site's logo to the home page in the format: site.ru (or www.site.ru, depending on the settings of the main mirror). Write keywords in alt and title.

• Add a sitemap (not to be confused with sitemap. xml). Having a site map significantly speeds up the indexing process. In addition, you can link to it from the 404 page. If there are too many links, you can clear the map of pages like “cart” and “ personal account” and leave only landing pages.
• Link promoted pages to each other. This way you can extend the effect of external links (which are often difficult to find due to the fact that high-quality external links are not cheap) to other pages of the resource.
• Place links correctly in the text:

There should not be too many anchor links in the text.
There are exceptions when the link is very “on topic”, or the text is too large and a slightly larger number of links will not be very noticeable. But in most cases, you shouldn’t overdo it with links, because this one can not only be visually repulsive, but also be considered spammy. Follow the rule of no more than 3 links per 1000 characters and no more than 50 links per page.

Link anchors should be different.
Links with repeated anchors may “glue together” and then the transfer of weight will be cut down, in addition, a large number of links in text descriptions with the same anchor may be considered spam by search engines. Come up with different texts for internal linking and do not forget about relevance.

• Create a blog for your resource
  Create a section on your website to post high-quality and thematic articles that may be of interest to your user. Articles should be tailored to information requests that can be selected in Yandex. Wordstat and Google Planner. Place internal links from them to the promoted sections and increase the weight of the promoted pages.
• Link old content to new content
  Are you adding new content? Wonderful. Place links from it to old pages, and from old to new ones. And you will be happy. New content will be indexed faster, and old content will improve relevance.
• Also remember that pages should not link to themselves and you should not additionally highlight link anchors in the text.
  It is necessary to place links correctly. Internal linking is a user's guide to the site, allowing him to save time searching for the necessary information. The search robot thus gets an idea of ​​the site structure. Internal linking occupies a crucial place in SEO optimization. And is effective method site promotion, due to which you can significantly increase the site’s position.

Every website needs cross-linking. A guest of your resource, following a link or through a search engine, receives necessary information, and also receives an addition to it or finds something interesting for yourself by following internal thematic links.

Let's find out how to properly carry out internal linking, what internal website optimization is and analyze the methods of its promotion.

Cross-linking is the linking of pages of several or one site using links.

Linking a website plays a vital role in its SEO optimization, and is also the most effective method of promoting it.

Thanks to a properly organized system, you can significantly increase the site’s position in the main search engines, namely Yandex and Google:

Types of linking

Experts divide linking into:

• external;
• internal.

External linking

This type of linking involves placing links to another on the pages of one site. And since each link has a certain weight, such redirection to another resource increases the performance of the latter.

It should be remembered that a link with a thematic anchor (a keyword that is perceived by search engines and affects the ranking of the resource) will have a greater advantage.

When placing anchors on your site, you need to remember that the weight of your site depends on the keyword. It is best to use high-frequency (HF) queries on the main page of the site, since it has the maximum static weight:

External linking of website pages is considered the most effective and significantly increases its ranking. However, in order to organize it correctly, you should approach this wisely, namely, post the link in a suitable place for this, which will correspond to the resource data.

In this case, you need to make sure in advance what type of linking this particular site needs.

Why is site linking necessary?

If you stick enough simple rules linking pages, you can achieve incredibly high results:

• promoted pages should not have external links;
• The linking must necessarily go in a circle. Only in this case the weight of links will not depreciate;
• the promoted page of the site should have links only from different pages;
• keywords, namely anchors, are much more effective than links without anchors.

What is internal linking and why is it needed?

Internal linking is an integral and most important factor in internal website optimization. Its main goal is to increase the statistical weight of the internal pages of the project.

As stated above when promoting home page It is best to use HF queries, and on secondary pages it is appropriate to select mid-frequency (MF) queries:

Thus, internal website optimization is the connection of its internal pages.

The main advantages of internal linking:

• it should be done only once;
• Thanks to it, you save significantly on purchasing paid links;
• with the help of properly organized internal linking, it is possible to organize website promotion for some mid-frequency and low-frequency queries;
• it represents free way increasing the link mass of pages, as well as their statistical weight.

Low-frequency (LF) queries are most often used on third-level pages:

Linking as an element of internal website optimization

Today there are two basic schemes by which internal linking is carried out:

1. Hierarchical

   In this case, each of the resource pages links to the same one. In this case, only one of them receives an increase in statistical weight, which is the maximum;

2. Cyclic

   The following scheme applies here: one document links to the second, the last one to the third, and so on.

   Thus, the statistical weight increases like a “snowball” and the more pages of the site take part in this, the more weight it gains.

When performing internal linking of links, you should take into account the fact that search engines always take into account their text and “draw certain conclusions for themselves.”

If you create linking with any keywords just to get a link, you will subsequently lose the prospect of increasing the page ranking for the main keywords.

If you organize anchors and anchor sheets correctly, then in addition to increased static weight, you will also receive an increase in the resource’s position for the key request.

• If possible, try to link to the main page from internal ones using the same URLs;
• if there is a link to the same page, then do it with different anchors;
• do not place more than 3 links in one material;
• When you add new content, you need to link to and from it immediately.

Basic information for beginners

If linking is organized properly, then such a resource will look much more relevant in the eyes of the search engine.

Therefore, we propose to consider the basic rules of competent linking:

1. Always strive to link to promoted pages, as this will allow you to distribute some of the link mass to them;
2. All internal pages of the site should lead to the main page using a link. So each of them will transfer a little statistical weight to it. Thanks to the coordinated work of such a system, the pr check of internal pages will increase to at least one;
3. It is recommended to place the links themselves directly in the text, however, you should not limit yourself to linking the sidebar and footer, since the search engine may mistake them for navigation and simply not transmit them;
4. There is no need to go overboard with internal links. 3 from each page will be enough. In this case, the total number of links should not exceed 150, since the more there are, the less weight they convey;
5. It is not recommended to link to the same page using the same anchors, because search engines have a tendency to glue identical ones together. Accordingly, there will be no benefit;
6. At the end of each article you should insert the block “ Articles on the same topic" However, this principle should only be used when appropriate;
7. It is recommended to create a link for each new article. That is, when adding new content to the site, you should make links to it from already written texts on the same topic. At the same time, the same thing is done with the new article, in which links to the old one are inserted;
8. Organize a site map that will contain links to all pages of the resource;
9. Use an anchor in the link;
10. There should be no external links from the pages you promote;
11. The article with the greatest statistical weight should not be idle;
12. The more pages a resource has, the higher the effect will be;
13. Statistical weights must be applied rationally. For example, link from a promoted page to an internal one in such a way that the user ultimately returns to the first one;
14. The URL of the resource pages must have a normal form (NC).

We really hope that this article was useful to you!

Successful website promotion in search engines is unthinkable without proper internal linking of all its web pages. In this article I will tell you what interlinking is, what its types and schemes are, I will touch upon interlinking and, of course, I will provide instructions for setting up correct interlinking.

By tradition, at the end of the article I will share my experience in working with this method of website promotion.

Relinking

Cross-linking is the connection of web pages with links. The term itself comes from the English word Link- link. There are internal and external linking.

External website linking is a promotion method when the promoted page is linked to from another website. Or, more simply put, when one site links to another, external resource. Links can be from any sites, for example from WikiPedia, I wrote a little about this in this article -.

Internal website linking is the linking of web pages of one website using various links, which creates at least 3 positive effects:

1. Improving website usability. That is, a linking site is more convenient for visitors. Search engines think so and it is true;
2. Promoting a web page for low-frequency queries. Proper linking can increase the optimized page's search results for low-frequency queries;
3. Increasing page weight. All pages of the site have a weight, which may vary and is determined by the number of links from other web pages. New pages have zero weight.

Internal linking as a method of promotion or why to link a site

Let's take a look at internal linking (IL) as SEOs. If we talk about black and white methods of promotion, then VP certainly belongs to the white methods that cannot harm search engine promotion site, but with the wrong approach, the effect of linking may not be at all.

If we talk about paid and free, then internal linking is a completely free method. That's why this method promotion I especially recommend to beginners in SEO. Mastering the basics of competent linking is not difficult.

Why is linking needed? Apart from the above 3 positive effects, in principle, there is nothing special to add. In addition, all these three factors can play a key role in the promotion of any site, be it a new site or a site with a large number content. Well, with the help of linking you can create complex conversion funnels. That is, with the help of feature articles, collect interested visitors on a special selling page and turn them into targeted visitors, ready to purchase goods and services, subscribe, etc.

Types and schemes of internal linking

Based on the types of links and how they are placed, I will highlight 4 types of internal linking:

Linking schemes. I will talk about three main linking methods. The essence of all linking methods or schemes is to prevent pages from linking to each other.

Figure 3. Sprocket

Star method. One of the main methods of internal linking. The essence this method It is simple and consists in ensuring that all pages of the site link to each other.

This can be primarily useful if there is no specifically promoted page (or all pages are promoted, for example in an online store or directory) and there is no need to increase the weight of something specific.

In addition, with this method, you can be sure that all pages will be independent of each other (even despite the direct dependence, but I will explain this a little later) and indexing the site will be very easy (provided there is high-quality content).

Figure 4. Ring

Ring method. Another classic method of internal linking. Unlike the previous one, here there is a targeted direction of weight to any promoted page (red circle).

The bottom line is that the pages link to each other, which allows for a mutual increase in weight, and at the same time, each page links to the promoted one, which gives it the greatest weight and it also receives a number of links with the necessary keys.

The disadvantages of this method are the following: 1. If one of the pages of the ring is inaccessible or the index simply “falls out”, then the entire “ring” will be broken and the pages to which links should have gone will not be indexed, that is, the structure will no longer be act. 2. In this case, there will be a very large level of nesting, and since there is still an opinion that the level of nesting still affects the dynamic weight of pages and links from them, the value of links from the lowest level will not be so noticeable.

Figure 5. Hierarchy

Hierarchy method. This method is used quite often; most sites are linked using it. The essence of the method is that a certain structure is built that resembles a progression. That is, one page links to two, those two link to the other two (four in total), and these four link to the first, which allows you to get Weight Limit for the promoted page, as well as maximum quantity links with the necessary anchors.

This method of internal linking works almost flawlessly and has proven itself in the field. However, it is still difficult to call it absolute. The fact is that the problem of “dropping out” of any page at the top of the hierarchy can lead to a significant disadvantage for the entire scheme.

Linking in WordPress

Linking in WordPress is a separate case, since this popular engine has a lot of solutions for proper internal linking.

Let's touch on the star method. To create it on WP, any plugin that can display similar entries at the end of the article is suitable, for example, Related Posts Thumbnails. Using such plugins is quite effective way, its big advantage is that records are linked by tags or categories, that is, linking occurs automatically.

Instructions for linking the site

The question always arises for SEOs: “How to kill two, even three birds with one stone: increase the relevance of the site, correctly distribute the weight and multiply it?” Here is the logic I follow when optimizing a website:

1. When optimizing a site, it is necessary to “clean” it of old linking. It is necessary to remove all the “garbage” so that when laying out a new link, it doesn’t turn out to be a mess on the site and for the robot during indexing. It is also important to check that all internal links on the site are formatted correctly.
2. Determine which pages need to be increased in weight and for which keywords.
3. Optimize promoted pages for selected keywords: meta tags, page text, pictures.
4. After implementing the first three points, you can already perform linking.

In conclusion, I will share my experience. The first thing I want to say is to try to install contextual links in articles correctly, without piling them on top of each other.

That's all, thanks for your attention! Do you have experience in internal linking, you can write about it in the comments.

Internal linking of site pages is based on the principle of convenience and usefulness to the user. Don't provide links as an end in themselves. If there are no clicks on them, they will not matter to search robots. Before implementing recommendations, think about, specifically on your resource, whether the links will help users, whether it will be convenient for them to go to other pages and why they should do this.

Step 1: Develop a structure

Even if your project has been running for almost ten years, try to re-evaluate its structure. How convenient it is for users to be on the site. How deep is the nesting of pages, is the site navigation clear. Design trends change every 3-5 years, look at how outdated the resource is and how it can be improved.

Compose new structure site. Based on user requests: why they come to the site and what they are looking for in the first place. Organize your site into categories. Determine which pages will now be the main ones and which ones will be the secondary ones. Try to make the site nesting up to three clicks. Make sure that you can get to all important categories from the main page.

Create a new structure using a mind map. Use the services XMind, FreeMind, iMindMap, etc. Distribute the structure in the map: center - categories - articles / products. If the resource is very large, create a mind map for each category.

Leave a request

Step 2: Distribute the weight of the pages

Each page on the site has its own weight. The higher the weight, the more significant the page is for search robots. It can be determined using special programs. For sites with up to 2 thousand pages, use free version Page Weight Lite. Be sure to check the “Use robots.txt” checkbox and disable the weight of external links. The program will calculate the weight of pages and provide the results in the form of digital values: weight, number of incoming and outgoing links.

Based on the data received, select the pages that will be donors. They will transfer their weight. And which will be acceptors - they will receive weight. They can also be selected automatically using programs and services, but we recommend analyzing the site yourself. This will improve the quality of linking of site pages. Here it is also appropriate to think about the user, which material will be more convenient for him to read first, and which - later.

Let's say the site contains articles about travel. There is a page with the key “How to buy cheap tickets”. This is a high-frequency key, and it is logical to make the page an acceptor, sending pages-articles about travel “Flying to Norway”, “To Greece for 3 days”, “Planning a vacation in Thailand in advance” and the like for donors.

Another example is that the site has several pages that answer the user’s query “What to take with you on the road.” These are the articles “What to take on the train”, “What to take on the road from food” and “What to take on the bus”. It turned out that the articles were written under low frequency queries and they also blur the low-frequency main key. All pages duplicate each other to some extent and have little weight. Therefore, we recommend combining them into one article to accumulate weight on one page.

Step 3. Select a set of keys for each page

Internal website linking works well when there are relevant keys and topical links on the pages. If on a tourist resource you put links about children’s holidays in the articles “The most funky resorts in Europe” and “How to have a blast in Ibiza”, then the linking will work poorly or will not work at all. The main reason will be the lack of conversions, because the keys have different target audiences.

Also, the text about children's recreation in such materials will look foreign and unrelated to the main topic. Due to the inconsistency of the topic, search robots may consider the link as link spam. Therefore, create groups of articles related to the same set of keywords. Leave the main key to the acceptor, distribute the rest among the donors.

There are two ways to select keys for pages. The first is to collect semantic core and select pages for it. The second is to take all the pages of the site and find the most relevant keys for them. The Key Collector program will help you with this, which can work in both directions.

If there is no Key Collector, then select it manually through Yandex. It will take more time, but the result will be no worse. Use the document operator “site:”. Enter search bar key, operator and resource. Yandex itself will select the most relevant site pages in the search results this request. For more information about Yandex operators, see the article "". The operator also works for Google. You need to indicate the main mirror of the site. Find out in Yandex.Webmaster which domain is the main mirror: with or without www.

When the search engine shows the search results, follow each link and look at the key. It is highlighted in bold. Provide a link to the highlighted word if it is appropriate in the context of the article. If not, find a topic paragraph where a link to another article would look appropriate. It often happens that there is a key, but it is not in the texts of articles. This happens if the site was initially created without taking into account keys and future linking. Then you will have to find similar pages manually using a site map or administrative panel. Find pages whose titles are thematically relevant to the key, and add relevant text there and the required link with a key.

Step 5: Add Links

The pages have been selected. Now you need to make the correct linking of pages. All links are divided into two types: anchor and non-anchor. All links in the page code are written like this:< a href=”www.site.ru ” >text< /a >The word “text” is what users see on the pages. These are words and phrases that are emphasized on sites in the form of links. A link can be simply text, keys, website address, images. If a link includes keywords, it is called an anchor link. If not, then without an anchor.

When linking, make sure that the pages look natural. Maintain a 50% to 50% ratio between anchor and non-anchor links. Large giant websites in Runet have a non-anchor link mass from 40 to 55%. Do not use “curve” or explicit keywords as link anchors. Insert them in their natural form according to the rules of the Russian language. For every 2000 characters of text, it is permissible to add 2-3 links. If the link is not anchored, then write the text next to it correctly. It should make it clear where the link leads and why.

Step 6: Remove Bad Links

Try to understand whether the site contains signs of search engine and link spam. These are spam phrases in the text of links, an overabundance of keys on pages and internal links. Separately deal with “hanging” pages. These are pages to which links lead, but there are no links from them. We recommend adding links to them in accordance with the subject of the pages or removing links completely. Check to see if the site has circular links, where an article links to itself. If there is, delete it.

• duplicate pages;
• low-visibility links that are designed exclusively for robots;
• "broken" links;
• circular links, when a page links to itself;
• extra links in the footer;
• links closed in the robots.txt file.

Crib

Proper site linking helps users and search robots. It shows the structure of the site, promotes fast indexing, simplifies navigation and improves behavioral factors.

Determine the weight of pages using Page Weight Lite. Decide which pages will be donors and which will be acceptors.

Choose your own set for each page key phrases. Use Key Collector or search engines. To work in search, use the “site:” operator.

Optimize pages for selected keywords. Check title, h1, image tags.

Remove circular links, “broken” ones, closed in the robots.txt file, unnecessary ones in the footer, and poorly visible ones. Deal with dangling pages and duplicates. Check for signs of search and link spam in the form of an overabundance of keys and internal links.

The material was prepared by Svetlana Sirvida-Llorente.

Good day, dear readers.
Not more than two months ago, on May 24, I wrote about... The topic is very interesting, and I wanted to develop it. Therefore, the outline of this article is as follows:

1. Repetition is the mother of learning - What is linking
2. Linking scheme

What is linking

So, let's repeat what linking is. The answer to this question is contained in the title itself. Perelinkovka is the Russified meaning of the word link, which means not only “link”, but also “linking”. Those. interlinking is linking. What with what?

Linking web pages to each other through links. This linking (linking) can be either within one site - internal linking, or linking different sites - external linking. This article will focus primarily on internal linking. But the main thing is to grasp the essence and much will become clearer.

How did this concept arise, and why was it all invented?
In the last article about promotion in search engines, I wrote. The determining factor in ranking sites is links with anchors. Each such link tells the search robot that a specific article is relevant (corresponds) to a specific request.

Also, one of important factors, which follows from the previous statement, is the static weight of the page. For a search robot, each page on the Internet has its own static weight, which increases as the link mass increases, i.e. The more links there are to a certain page, the greater its static weight. This static weight also matters when ranking sites in search engines.

So, to summarize the above,

linking is the linking of web pages with links to increase relevance for certain queries and to increase the static weight of the page.

Many people have questions about what is competent or correct linking.

Correct and competent linking

In general, correct or competent linking is the linking with the help of which pages are promoted along search queries. But how do you understand how to do the linking correctly? Let's try to figure this out.

So, we found out that there are two components to linking: anchor and static weight. They are tightly intertwined with each other, but because... With an anchor, everything is more or less clear, but with a static weight it’s more difficult. And in order to clearly understand how to correctly link website pages, you need to focus on the static weight of pages and find out what it is and how it works.

So when it appears new page on the Internet, it does not matter whether it is within the site or independent. As long as there is not a single link to it for a search engine, it has minimal weight. As soon as a link appears to it, internal or external, the weight of the newborn page immediately begins to increase due to the flow of weight from the page that linked to it.

Let's try to think logically. If with each link the static weight of the page increases, and link anchors indicate for which queries certain pages should be shown, then it can be logically assumed that the pages that you want to promote in search results should have more links and always with anchors. In principle, this is true, but with one very important addition.

Each link transfers part of its static weight not just once, but constantly. Those. By placing a link from article 1 to article 2, the weight will be transferred constantly. If an external link appears on article 1, the static weight of the article 1 page will increase, which means that more weight will begin to be transferred to the page with article 2.

Therefore, we turn on logic and understand that if we link to promoted articles, and the transfer of weight through links ends on them, then they will constantly be fed with new weight, increase it, but will not share it with anyone. And the pages that linked to them will always be only guides. And the weight that will be received from the outside will be given to those items where the transfer of weight stops.

Or imagine another situation, when you have linked to a promoted page, and there is one external link from it, then it turns out that the weight that you have accumulated for the promoted page will flow through one external link, i.e. the weight will go to someone else's site.

Therefore, with proper linking, it is necessary not only to link to the promoted articles, but to make sure that all the weight that is concentrated in these articles, having passed through other internal pages of the site, returns to them again, but with increased weight. And under no circumstances did he go to an external site. Those. All internal links on the site must be looped.

To sum up these considerations, we can confidently answer the question: What is correct, competent linking?

Correct linking– this is linking pages in such a way that all static weight is distributed within one site or within a network of sites (if we talk about external linking), and does not go to third-party sites.

From all of the above, let us highlight the basic rules for linking pages.

Linking pages - basic rules

1. It is necessary to constantly link to promoted articles.
2. It is necessary to link in such a way that the anchor of the links contains keyword queries.
3. A good effect will be obtained from a link from an old article, which already has static weight and authority for the search engine.
4. It is necessary that there are no external links from the promoted pages.
5. If the promoted page has external links (especially important for blogs), then distribute the weight to your own internal pages.
6. From promoted pages you can and should link to your internal pages, but in such a way that, having passed through a certain circle inside the site, all the weight again returns to the promoted page increased.
7. It follows from the previous point - loop the internal pages of the site so that the static weight remains inside the site, flowing from one page to another, thereby constantly increasing.
8. The more internal pages of the site, the greater the effect of linking.
But many people are concerned about this question, well, show me at least one linking scheme.

Linking scheme

In general, there are a lot of various schemes. They are all the same, so I don't see the point in stealing pictures or drawing something new. Everything has already been done before us and for us. I recommend the article Page Rank Explained. This article is quite old, but is still relevant for understanding how static weight is distributed on website pages. It presents the basic schemes for linking website pages: hierarchical, cyclic and extensive linking. Much of what I described to you I learned from this article.

Also, I found a short note on this article on one forum, which is also useful for reading.

In general, I want to express my personal opinion about the schemes. I believe there is no need to strictly follow any schemes when we're talking about about internal linking, especially when it comes to blogs. The main thing is to keep in mind the rules that I described above. Do it for people, for their convenience.

If you have conceived an article, and it is meaningfully connected with other articles, and links from it are appropriate to other articles, or, conversely, links to a new article from old articles are appropriate, then you should definitely use this. This will be convenient for the reader, it will be useful for increasing the static weight of other pages, it will be useful for promoting certain search queries.

And don’t think that old articles are not indexed by search engines. Search robots constantly index sites, especially those pages that are in high positions in search results and have sufficient weight and authority for the search engine.

Automatic or manual linking

Above, I wrote that it is necessary to put links to your own articles when it is appropriate and may be convenient for readers. And I believe that the manual method gives the greatest effect from linking website pages, because... done thoughtfully, links are inside the article, whichever you like best search engines. But, of course, there is also automatic methods page linking.

These include installing special scripts or plugins for linking. For each engine there are ready-made solutions that can be easily found on the Internet.

With the help of plugins and scripts, a list of similar articles appears at the end of the article. But it doesn’t always turn out that this list contains exactly those articles that are most relevant, because all plugins and scripts display similar articles based on the labels you assign.

That’s why I believe that such scripts and plugins have less effect than manual, deliberate linking of pages. But, on the other hand, they have an additional effect - they keep readers on your blog.

Update June 14, 2011.
The correctness of the linking made on the site can be checked using special programs. I wrote an article about one of them.
Good luck with your promotion.