Internal link graph is too sparse

Why it matters

A site where most pages have one or two inbound internal links is hard for search engines to understand structurally and hard for AI engines to navigate when looking for related context. Strong internal linking signals "these pages are about related things, here is how they connect": which both Google's PageRank-like ranking and the LLM's "what other pages on this site should I cite alongside" decision rely on.

The fix

Three patterns that produce strong internal linking:

1. **Topic clusters.** Each pillar page links to 5–10 related deep-dive pages, each deep-dive links back to its pillar. The "hub and spoke" pattern.

   ```html
   <!-- On the pillar page /learn/llms-txt -->
   <h2>See also</h2>
   <ul>
     <li><a href="/learn/llms-txt-validator">How to validate your llms.txt</a></li>
     <li><a href="/learn/llms-txt-vs-robots-txt">llms.txt vs robots.txt</a></li>
     <li><a href="/blog/why-your-llms-txt-is-probably-broken">Common llms.txt mistakes</a></li>
   </ul>
   ```

2. **Contextual in-body links.** When a blog post references a concept defined in another page, link to it inline. Don't save all the links for a "see also" footer.

3. **Breadcrumbs + category indexes.** Every detail page should link back to its category, every category page should list its details. This automatically gives every page at least 2-3 inbound links from structural pages.

Avoid:
- Linking every page from a giant footer megamenu. Footer links carry little weight and feel spammy.
- Over-linking the same page from every other page. Excessive sitewide links dilute the signal.
- Using "click here" as anchor text. The anchor should describe the destination.

A reasonable target: every important page should have at least 3 inbound internal links from contextually relevant other pages.

References

• Google Search Central: internal linking