Internal Links are hyperlinks, that point to pages on the same domain.These are different than external links which link out to pages on other domains.
For example: a.com/a points to a.com/b. i.e. it points to the same domain or different page on same site.Whereas in external links , for example: a.com.a points to a different domain i.e.b.com/a
- They are both for users and bots.
- Every page with more than one page should be connected with internal links
Benefits of Internal Linking
The benefits of internal linking are as follows:
- It is helpful from crawling point of view.Making search engines ease to crawl site perfectly.
- It can also help in passing the link value.
Google can easily workout on the relationship of the content present on the different pages.
Internal Links helps in providing this context to bots.
Difference between internal links and external links
The major difference between internal links and external link is that internal points to same domain or same website different pages . whereas external links points to different domain or different websites pages.
For Example :https://example.com/a points to :https://example.com/b which is a different page on same domain i.e. Internal link. Whereas https://example.com/a points to :https://example1.com/b which is a different domain .i.e. external link.
Types of Internal Links
There are different types of Internal Links.They are as follows:
- Homepage
- Menu
- Postfeed
- Contextual links and so on
Why internal links are important
Internal linking is important because of the following reasons
- It provides easy navigation to crawlers and users
- It helps to build a hierarchy in a website
- It helps to distribute link value to different pages of a website
Best practices of Internal Links
- Creating more content can give you scope of creating more internal links
- Use Relevant Anchor text
- Avoid links to top pages in a hierarchy
- Use natural linking for readers
- Do-Follow links should be used in internal linking