Internal linking rules to apply to every article
Use 3 to 8 internal links per 1,000 words, anchors of 2 to 8 words, no repeated anchors, a link to the pillar page and none to orphans. Here's why.
Internal linking rules are the checks every article should pass before it goes live: enough links to related pages, descriptive anchor text, a link to the topic’s main page, and a link back from at least one existing page. A few concrete numbers turn that advice into something you can check in two minutes.
Google publishes the principles but not the numbers. This guide gives both: what Google says, and the specific rules we apply to every article, marked clearly as our conventions where they are ours.
Why internal links matter for search and AI answers
Internal links do three jobs. They help search engines find pages, they tell search engines what a page is about through the anchor text, and they help readers go deeper.
Google’s link best practices put the first job plainly: “Every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site.” A page nothing links to is hard to discover and looks unimportant.
The same applies to AI features. Google’s guide to AI features and your website lists “making your content easily findable through internal links on your website” among its best practices for AI Overviews and AI Mode. Our article on how pages get cited in AI answers covers the rest of that list.
The rules at a glance
Here is the whole set. The sections below explain each one.
| Rule | Our number | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Internal links per article | 3 to 8 per 1,000 words, at least 3 | Our convention |
| Anchor length | 2 to 8 words | Our convention, from Google’s “reasonably concise” |
| Anchor wording | Descriptive; never “click here” or a bare URL | |
| Repeated anchors | No internal anchor text used twice in one article | Our convention |
| Pillar page | Link to the topic’s main page when one exists | Common practice |
| Link targets | Every internal link points to a live page in your sitemap | Google, plus our check |
| Self-links | No link to the article’s own URL | Our convention |
| Orphans | At least one existing page links to the new one | |
| External citations | 2 to 8 per article, each source linked at most twice | Our convention |
The numbers are ours, not Google’s. Google sets no link count, and you shouldn’t treat any count as a ranking formula. They exist to catch two real failures: an article with no links at all, and one stuffed with them.
Rule 1: use 3 to 8 internal links per 1,000 words
Aim for 3 to 8 internal links for every 1,000 words, and at least 3 in any article, unless your site has fewer related pages than that.
Below 3, readers have nowhere to go next and search engines get little context. Far above 8 per 1,000 words, links start to crowd the text, and each one carries less meaning. A 1,500-word guide lands at roughly 5 to 12 links.
Count only links in the body. Navigation, footers and sidebars repeat on every page and say little about this one.
Rule 2: write anchors of 2 to 8 words that describe the target
Google says “good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to the page that it’s on.” It labels “click here” as too generic and a long, sentence-length anchor as “weirdly long.”
Google also offers a useful test: read only the anchor text, out of context, and check that it makes sense by itself. We turn “reasonably concise” into 2 to 8 words.
| Anchor | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| click here | Bad | Says nothing about the target |
| read more | Bad | Generic; repeated across the site |
| https://example.com/pricing | Bad | A bare URL is not descriptive |
| pricing | Weak | One word; too broad to say which page |
| our plans and credit packs | Good | Says exactly what the reader will find |
| how we check each draft for errors | Good | Specific and under 8 words |
| everything you need to know about the many ways our team reviews and approves drafts | Bad | Far too long to scan |
Put the link on the words that name the target, inside a natural sentence. Don’t write sentences whose only purpose is to hold a link.
Rule 3: never use the same internal anchor twice
Within one article, each internal anchor should be different. If you link to your pricing page twice, use two different descriptions, or better, link it once.
Repeated anchors usually mean one of two things. Either the same page is linked too often, or several different pages share one vague label like “learn more.” Both waste the anchor’s job of describing a specific page.
Varied anchors also help readers. Two links reading “our guide” side by side give no hint which is which. Google adds a related rule: “Don’t chain up links next to each other,” because readers can’t tell them apart.
Rule 4: link to the pillar page
Most sites group content into topics, each with a main page: a guide, a category page or a service page. That page is the pillar, or hub. Every article on the topic should link to it.
Pillar links do two things. They send readers to the broadest page on the subject, and they concentrate internal links on the page you most want to rank for the topic. When you plan a content calendar around pillars, each new post makes its pillar stronger.
If a topic has no pillar yet, that is a planning gap worth noting. Write the hub page before the tenth post that should link to it.
Rule 5: link only to live pages in your sitemap
Every internal link should point to a page that exists, returns a normal response, and appears in your sitemap. That rules out three common problems:
- Broken links to pages that were deleted or renamed.
- Redirected links to old URLs. They usually work, but update them to the final address.
- Links to pages you excluded, such as tag archives or drafts, that you don’t want indexed.
The sitemap is a good list to check against because it is your own statement of which pages count. Google’s sitemap documentation notes that sitemaps matter most on large sites, where “it’s more difficult to make sure that every page is linked by at least one other page on the site.” A sitemap helps discovery, but it doesn’t replace internal links.
Also check the link format. Google says it can generally only crawl a link if it is an <a> element with an href. A link that only works through a script click handler may be invisible to crawlers.
Rule 6: don’t link an article to itself
A link from an article to its own URL wastes a link and confuses readers who click it. It often happens when a template or a writer links the topic’s keyword, and the best page for that keyword is the one being written.
Check for links to the article’s canonical URL, and to any path ending in its slug.
Rule 7: leave no orphan pages
An orphan is a page no other page on your site links to. Google’s rule is that every page you care about needs a link from at least one other page. Publishing a new article only fixes half of this: the new page links out, but nothing links in yet.
So each new article creates a small task. Find one or two existing pages on the same topic, usually the pillar and a closely related post, and add a link to the new article from each.
To find existing orphans, compare your sitemap against a crawl of your internal links. Any URL in the sitemap that no crawled page links to is an orphan. Either link to it from a relevant page or ask whether it should exist at all.
Rule 8: cite 2 to 8 external sources
External links are not internal links, but they belong in the same check. Google notes that external links “can help establish trustworthiness (for example, citing your sources).”
Our rule: 2 to 8 external citations per article (1 is fine under about 700 words), each source linked at most twice. Link primary sources for every statistic and quotation. Our claim-by-claim fact-checking method covers how to confirm each link supports its sentence.
Paid or exchanged links follow different rules. They must be marked rel="sponsored" or nofollow, and a link swap that exists to pass ranking is link spam under Google’s policies.
How to add internal links to a new article
Run this procedure once per article, after the draft is written and before it is approved:
- List candidates. Pull your sitemap and pick the pages most related to the article’s topic and keyword. Include the pillar page.
- Place links where they help. Add each link in the section where a reader would want that page. Skip the intro sentence unless the link is the answer.
- Write the anchors. Use 2 to 8 descriptive words, different for every link.
- Count. Check you have 3 to 8 internal links per 1,000 words, and none to the article itself.
- Verify targets. Confirm each link is in the sitemap and doesn’t redirect.
- Add links in. After publishing, add a link to the new article from the pillar and from one related post.
- Check external citations. Confirm 2 to 8 sources, each linked at most twice, each supporting its sentence.
How Wavefront handles internal links
Wavefront applies these rules to every article it drafts. It reads the site’s sitemap, ranks pages against the article’s topic, marks the closest page as the pillar, and plans which section links where. The article writer then writes the links with varied, descriptive anchors.
The checks described in how drafts are checked flag link counts, repeated or generic anchors, self-links, missing pillar links and links outside the sitemap. Most are warnings for the reviewer, not blockers, because the numbers are conventions. Wavefront doesn’t edit your other pages, so it can’t fix orphans for you. It lists the pillar page on the draft review screen so a person can add the link back, and the strategy planner keeps new posts grouped around pillars from the start.