Which link problem should I fix first?

Broken internal links and orphan pages, in that order. Both are entirely within your control, both cut off a real flow (crawl discovery or link equity), and both tend to appear in bulk from a single cause such as a migration or a template change, so fixing the cause clears many pages at once.

Do internal links matter as much as backlinks?

For most sites, internal links are the more useful lever day to day, precisely because you control every one of them. Backlinks from other sites carry real authority too, but you cannot dictate how or whether another site links to you. Your internal link graph, by contrast, is a lever you can pull today.

Can too many internal links hurt a page?

Not the presence of links, but the volume on one page can. The audit flags pages carrying more than 250 outbound links, because a large number of links dilutes the value each individual link passes on. Link generously where it helps a reader, but a page that links to everything effectively recommends nothing.

How does the Links category relate to Crawlability and Indexability?

They cover different layers of the same journey. Crawlability decides whether a page can be reached and fetched at all, indexability decides whether it is allowed into the index once fetched, and links decide how efficiently authority and discovery flow between the pages that clear both those gates. A page can pass every crawlability and indexability check and still underperform if nothing links to it.

Home/SEO Guide/Links

SEO guide · category 03 · site structure

Internal & broken linksDoes every link land where it should?

Links are how crawlers find your pages and how authority moves between them. A dead link wastes both; a missing one leaves a page stranded.

Last reviewed · 1 Oct 2026Reference article · 16 sources →Kalenux engineering

Check my links free →Broken Link Checker

/blog/ · outgoing links3 of 5 need a fix

↗/pricinginternal · 200✓ ok

↗/guides/setup-2023internal · page removed✕ 404

↗/featuresinternal · 301 → /product✕ via redirect

↗/account/logininternal · noindex target✕ non-indexable

↗partner-docs.exampleoutbound · 200✓ ok

every link, with the page it sits on · illustrative

what a link is made of

Three parts, three chances to get it wrong.

Search engines read every part of a link. Each part has its own rule.

<a href="/guides/trail-shoe-sizing/"rel="…">trail shoe sizing guide</a>

href: the destinationMust be a real, resolvable URL that returns 200. A JavaScript-only click handler isn’t a link crawlers can follow.

anchor text: the labelTells readers and search engines what the target is about. “Click here” tells them nothing.

rel: the relationshipOptional. Use sponsored, ugc or nofollow only for links you don’t want to vouch for.

how deep your pages sit

The fewer clicks from home, the easier a page is to find.

Every click away from the homepage is one more link a crawler has to follow. Pages with no path at all are orphans.

DEPTH 0

/homepage · 1 page

DEPTH 1

/shop/from nav

/blog/from nav

/about/from footer

DEPTH 2

/shop/trail/from /shop/

/shop/road/from /shop/

/blog/sizing/from /blog/

DEPTH 3+

/shop/trail/x-200/from category

/blog/2019/…from archive page 14

NO PATH

/spring-promo/0 inbound links · sitemap only

easy to reachburiedorphan· illustrative

why links break, and what to do

Six causes, one fix each.

Nearly every broken link traces back to one of these. The cause tells you where the fix belongs.

CAUSEWHAT YOU SEEFIX

A page was deletedLinks across the site now return 404→Update or remove each link; redirect the old URL if it has a replacement

A slug or folder changedOld links go through a redirect, or 404 if none was set→Point links at the new URL; keep a 301 as the fallback

A typo in the hrefOne link 404s while the page itself is fine→Fix the link at its source

Hard-coded http:// linksEvery link takes an extra redirect hop→Rewrite internal links to the https URL

An external site moved or closedOutbound link returns 404, 5XX or a parked domain→Link to the new location or remove the reference

Relative paths from a templateLinks resolve differently depending on the page depth→Use root-relative (/path/) or absolute URLs

how anchor text reads

Say where the link goes, in the words people would search.

Anchor text is one of the clearest hints about the target page. The same link, labelled five ways:

click heregeneric

Linking questions we hear most.

Q1Should I fix a broken link or redirect the old URL?

Both, in order. Update the link at its source so it points straight to the right page. Add a 301 for the old URL too, so outside links and bookmarks still land somewhere useful.

Q2Is linking to a redirect really a problem?

A small one. It works, but every hop adds a request and delays crawling. On a large site those hops add up, and pointing links at the final URL removes them for free.

Q3Do broken outbound links affect rankings?

Indirectly. They are mainly a quality and user-experience problem: a page full of dead references looks unmaintained. They are cheap to fix, so fix them.

Reference article · 16 sources

From PageRank to rel="ugc": the full record on links.

A link, or hyperlink, is a reference in a web page that points to another resource, written in HTML as an <a> element with an href attribute. In search engine optimisation, internal links connect pages on the same site and anchor text is the visible, clickable label. Search engines use links both to discover pages and to understand how relevant they are.

KALENUX REFERENCEInternal links and anchor text