Internal linking is crucial for your website

When Google reveals a bit of information about how their search algorithm works, the words they use are very important.

For example, last year Google’s Gary Illyes mentioned that website speed is a “teeny tiny factor” in ranking, which came as a surprise to many people. It’s very important for user experience, but isn’t a major factor to Google.

However, in a recent post about the importance of internal linking on your website, Google’s John Mueller said that it was “super critical” and “one of the biggest things you can do” to help Google. Those are bold words!

Internal Links

I try to be very intentional about links on this site. Sometimes I’ll link out to other sources (such as the link a few paragraphs up), and many times I’ll link to old posts of mine that are relevant for the discussion at hand. For example, while John made it clear that internal links are important, I can point you to a post of mine from last year where he said that you can certainly have too many internal links and perhaps create problems.

Internal links are a huge, easy win, because they benefit both the user and Google. Really, most things that are good for users (unique content, mobile friendliness, etc) are good for Google as well. In most cases, you can think “Would this be good…