Internal Link Analyzer
Crawl your site and see how your pages link to each other. Find pages nothing links to, pages buried too deep, broken internal links and weak anchor text, with an inbound-link count, click depth and a relative internal link score for every page.
- Crawls up to 100 pages
- Finds orphans, deep and weak pages
- Anchor text and link score report
Next, check what those links point at: Broken Link Checker, Canonical URL Checker and XML Sitemap Validator.
Your internal link structure, page by page
Internal links tell visitors and search engines which pages matter and how they relate. The analyzer turns your site into a link map and reads it.
Inbound links
How many other pages link to each page. Pages nothing links to are hard for crawlers and visitors to find.
Click depth
The number of clicks from the start page. Important pages should usually be within three clicks.
Internal link score
A relative 0 to 100 score based on the PageRank idea, applied to your crawled pages, showing which pages your linking favours.
Orphan pages
Pages in your sitemap that no crawled page links to. They may rank poorly because nothing passes them attention.
Anchor text
The words used in links. Descriptive anchors help. Generic ones like click here and empty ones don't.
Broken and redirected links
Internal links that point at errors or go through a redirect, found for free while crawling.
The signals to look for and what to do about them
Each finding points to a specific, practical fix.
| Finding | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| No inbound links | Nothing in the crawl links to the page. | Add links from related pages, or from a hub or category page. |
| Only one inbound link | The page depends on a single link. | Add two or three more from relevant pages. |
| Four or more clicks deep | The page is buried, so it gets little attention. | Link to it from higher-level pages or the navigation. |
| Generic anchors | Click here and read more say nothing about the target. | Rewrite with a short phrase naming the topic. |
| Many different pages, same anchor | One phrase competes across several pages. | Use varied, specific anchors for each target. |
| 100+ links on a page | Each link carries less weight and the page is hard to use. | Trim or split the page. |
| Link to a redirect or 404 | A wasted hop or a dead end. | Link to the final URL, or fix the broken target. |
How to audit your internal links
A repeatable routine for any site.
Crawl the site
Enter your site address. Keep Compare with the sitemap on to find orphan pages.
Read the overview
See the most linked pages, click depth and the link score leaders. Do they match your priorities?
Work the opportunities
Fix broken links, link to orphans and deep pages, and improve weak anchors.
Re-crawl
Run it again after changes, and export the CSV to track improvement.
How to build a strong internal link structure
Good internal linking is mostly consistent habits.
Link in topic clusters
Connect a main page to its supporting pages and back, so related content reinforces itself.
Link to the pages that earn
Point links at the pages you most want to rank, from pages that already get attention.
Write descriptive anchors
Name what the page is about in two to five words, and vary the wording naturally.
Keep important pages shallow
Key pages should be reachable within three clicks of the home page.
Use real links
Plain a href links in the HTML. Links added only by JavaScript or buttons may not be followed.
Link from new content
When you publish, add links from older relevant pages to the new one, not only the other way around.
What an internal link analyzer shows and why site structure depends on it
Internal links are the links between pages on the same site. They do three jobs. They let visitors move around, they let crawlers discover pages, and they give each page context through the words used in the link. Google's guidance on links says every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site, and that good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant to both pages.
An internal link analyzer crawls your pages and turns those links into a map. For each page you see how many pages link to it, how many clicks it takes to reach it from the start page, which links are broken or redirected and what words the links use. You also see a relative score based on the PageRank idea. Google says PageRank continues to be part of its core ranking systems, but the score here is calculated only from the pages the tool crawled. It is a way to see which pages your own linking favours, not a Google metric.
Most sites never plan their internal links. They grow from menus, templates, tag archives and whatever an author remembered to link. The result is usually a few heavily linked pages, a long tail of pages with one link and a handful that nothing links to at all. Seeing that pattern is the first step to changing it.
When to analyze your internal links
Run it when you want to know where your site sends attention and where it does not.
To find orphan pages
Compare the sitemap with the crawl. A page that is listed but not linked is one that visitors cannot click to and crawlers meet only through the sitemap.
To check money pages are supported
Look up the service, product or category pages you most want to rank. If they have one or two inbound links, they are being outranked by pages that matter less.
After publishing new content
A new post is linked from the blog index and little else. Use the report to pick older, relevant pages that should point to it.
When planning topic clusters
Check whether a main page and its supporting pages link to each other, so a group of related pages reinforces the topic.
Before a redesign
Record click depth and link counts for the current site, then compare them with the new navigation to confirm that no important page loses its links.
To clean up anchor text
See which links say only "click here" or "read more", and which phrase is reused for many different targets. Rewrite them to name the topic.
Internal linking mistakes and how to fix them
Strong internal links come from consistent habits more than from clever tactics.
Leaving pages orphaned
What goes wrong: A page with no internal links depends on the sitemap alone. Google says a sitemap helps discovery but does not guarantee crawling or indexing.
The fix: Link to the page from at least one related page, and from a hub or category page if it belongs to a group. Re-crawl to confirm.
Generic anchor text
What goes wrong: "Click here", "read more" and "this page" say nothing about the target. Google's guidance describes good anchors as descriptive and relevant to the linked page.
The fix: Use two to five words that name the topic, such as "redirect chain checker". Vary the wording naturally instead of repeating one phrase.
Links that are not real links
What goes wrong: Google can reliably extract URLs from a elements with an href attribute. Buttons or click handlers with no href may not be followed as links.
The fix: Use plain <a href="/page"> links for navigation, including in menus built with JavaScript. Check the rendered page to confirm they are present.
Important pages buried deep
What goes wrong: A page that takes five or six clicks to reach gets little attention from visitors and is a weaker candidate for frequent crawling.
The fix: Link to it from the home page, a main menu, a hub page or a popular post. Keeping key pages within about three clicks is a practical rule of thumb, not a Google requirement.
Linking to redirects and 404s
What goes wrong: Internal links that go through a redirect cost a hop, and links to missing pages lead nowhere. Both are usually left behind after a URL change.
The fix: Edit each link to the final live URL. The report lists them, and a template fix often clears many at once.
Hundreds of links on one page
What goes wrong: A page with a very long list of links gives each one little emphasis and is hard to use. Mega menus and footers often cause this.
The fix: Trim the list to links a reader would use, and move the rest to category pages. Link where it helps the reader.
Internal linking terms explained
- Internal link
- A link from one page of a site to another page on the same site. It carries visitors and crawlers along and describes the target through its anchor text.
- Inbound internal links
- The links from other pages on your site that point to a given page. The tool counts them for every crawled page.
- Anchor text
- The visible words of a link. Descriptive anchors tell visitors and search engines what the target is about before they open it.
- Orphan page
- A page that exists, and often appears in the sitemap, but has no internal links pointing to it from the crawled pages.
- Click depth
- The smallest number of clicks needed to reach a page from the start page. Lower depth generally means a page is easier to find.
- PageRank
- A link analysis system Google introduced at launch, which it says remains part of its core ranking systems. The tool applies the same idea only to your crawled pages.
- Hub page
- A page that links out to a group of related pages, such as a category page or a guide's main page. Supporting pages usually link back to it.
- Topic cluster
- A set of related pages organised around one main topic, linked together so the group is easy to follow for readers and crawlers.
Related tools, guides and services
Internal links touch crawling, redirects and indexing. These cover the neighbouring checks.
Broken Link Checker
Test every link on a page or small site and find the ones that fail or redirect.
ToolXML Sitemap Validator
Check the sitemap that the orphan page comparison depends on.
ToolCanonical URL Checker
Make sure your internal links point at the canonical versions of pages.
GuideSEO audit errors that matter
See why weak internal links to important pages are one of the audit issues worth fixing first.
GuidePages not indexed: causes and fixes
Learn how missing internal links can keep a page out of Google.
ServiceOn-page SEO service
Get internal links, headings and content structure reviewed for your key pages.
Built by
Madhav Kushwaha
SEO, AEO, GEO & Digital Marketing Consultant in Kathmandu, Nepal, and trainer at ODcrU Academy and TechAxis Institute. I built this analyzer because internal linking is the part of SEO you fully control and the part audits most often skip. Seeing which pages your own links favour, and which they ignore, shows quickly where a few well-placed links would help most.
Internal Link Analyzer: Frequently Asked Questions
More free SEO tools
How pages link, redirect and canonicalize decides how search engines move through a site. Check each part.