SEO & Internal Linking Glossary

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. In the sentence "read our internal linking best practices", the words "internal linking best practices" are the anchor text. Search engines use anchor text, together with the words around it, to understand what the destination page is about.

For internal links, you control every anchor, which makes anchor text one of the most direct ways to tell search engines which page should rank for which topic.

Breadcrumbs are navigational elements that display the user's path from the homepage to the current page, typically shown as a horizontal trail near the top of a page. For example, a breadcrumb trail might read "Home > Blog > SEO Tips > Internal Linking Guide." They take their name from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, where breadcrumbs were used to trace a path back home. In web design, they serve the same purpose, giving users and search engines a clear understanding of where a page sits within the overall site architecture.

Content hierarchy is the logical ordering and nesting of content from broad topics down to specific subtopics across your website. It establishes a pyramid-like structure where top-level category pages sit at the peak, supported by subcategory pages, and finally individual articles or product pages at the base. A clear content hierarchy ensures that each page has a defined role and relationship to the pages around it, creating a coherent site architecture that both users and search engines can follow intuitively.

Contextual links are hyperlinks placed inside the main content of a page, within a sentence or paragraph, that point to another page on a related topic. Unlike navigation links (menus, footers, sidebars, breadcrumbs), which repeat on every page, a contextual link is written for one specific piece of content and uses words that describe the destination.

Search engines read the text around a contextual link to understand what the target page is about. That surrounding context, combined with descriptive anchor text, makes contextual links the strongest type of internal link for SEO.

Crawl budget is the number of pages a search engine bot will crawl on your website within a given timeframe. Every website has a limited crawl budget determined by two factors: crawl rate limit (how fast the bot can crawl without overloading your server) and crawl demand (how much Google wants to crawl your site based on its perceived importance and freshness). If your site has more pages than your crawl budget allows, some pages will be crawled infrequently or not at all.

For most small to medium sites, crawl budget is not a major concern. However, as your site grows, adding blog posts, CMS collections, landing pages, and resources, crawl budget becomes increasingly important. Pages with poor crawl depth, orphan pages without internal links, and duplicate or thin content all waste crawl budget on pages that do not contribute to your rankings.

Crawl depth refers to the number of clicks required to reach a specific page starting from the homepage. A page that is directly linked from the homepage has a crawl depth of 1, while a page that requires clicking through two intermediate pages has a crawl depth of 3. Search engines interpret crawl depth as a signal of importance, pages closer to the homepage are generally considered more valuable and are crawled more frequently.

Most SEO experts recommend keeping important pages within three clicks of the homepage. When pages are buried too deep, they may be crawled less often, indexed more slowly, or not indexed at all. This is closely related to link depth and plays a significant role in how efficiently search engines can discover and process your content within your available crawl budget.

In SEO, deep linking means linking to a specific inner page of a website (an article, a product page, a guide) rather than to its homepage. A link to /blog/what-are-broken-links-in-seo is a deep link; a link to the root domain is not. Deep links can be internal (between pages of your own site) or external (from other websites to your inner pages).

In mobile development, "deep linking" also describes links that open a specific screen inside an app. This definition focuses on the SEO meaning.

A dofollow link is a standard hyperlink with no special attribute. It lets search engines follow the link and count it as a vote for the destination page. A nofollow link carries the attribute rel="nofollow", which asks search engines not to pass ranking credit through it.

"Dofollow" is not an actual HTML attribute: any link without nofollow (or a similar attribute) is a dofollow link by default.

Flat site architecture is a site structure where all important pages are reachable within two to three clicks from the homepage. Instead of burying content under multiple layers of categories and subcategories, a flat architecture minimizes link depth by keeping the hierarchy shallow and broadly connected. This does not mean every page links directly from the homepage, rather, it means strategic internal linking ensures no critical page is more than a few clicks away from the site's entry points.

Footer links are the links placed in the footer section of a website, which appears at the bottom of every page across the site. They typically include links to legal pages, contact information, sitemap pages, social media profiles, and secondary navigation items that do not fit in the main header. Because footers are site-wide elements, every footer link creates an internal link from every page on your site to the linked destination. This makes them a powerful but often misused element of navigation links.

The hub and spoke model is a linking strategy where a central "hub" page covers a broad topic comprehensively and links out to multiple related "spoke" pages that explore subtopics in greater detail. Each spoke page links back to the hub, creating a tightly interconnected cluster of content. This model is closely related to topic clusters and is often used interchangeably with it. The hub acts similarly to a pillar page, serving as the authoritative resource that ties all related content together.

An internal link audit is a review of every link between the pages of your own website. It checks that links work, that they point to the right pages, that important pages receive enough links, and that no page is isolated. The goal is a link structure that helps search engines crawl your site and understand which pages matter most.

An audit is especially useful after a redesign, a migration, a URL change, or when traffic drops without a clear reason. On a growing site, a light audit every few months keeps problems from piling up.

Link depth, also called click depth or crawl depth, is the number of clicks needed to reach a page from the homepage through internal links. The homepage has a depth of 0, pages linked from it have a depth of 1, pages linked from those have a depth of 2, and so on. A page that can only be reached after five or six clicks is "deep" in your site structure.

Link depth is a simple way to measure how accessible a page is, both for visitors and for search engine crawlers. The fewer clicks it takes to reach a page, the more likely it is to be crawled often and to receive link equity.

Link equity, often called link juice, is the ranking value a hyperlink passes from one page to another. When a page with authority links to another page, part of that authority flows through the link and helps the destination page rank. PageRank, the algorithm Google introduced to score pages by the links pointing to them, is the original model of this idea: a page is considered important when other important pages link to it.

Link equity comes from external backlinks, but internal links decide where it goes once it reaches your site. Every internal link is a way to move authority from pages that have it (usually the homepage and popular articles) to pages that need it (product pages, landing pages, new content).

Link juice is an informal SEO term that refers to the value or authority passed from one page to another through hyperlinks. When a high-authority page links to another page, it transfers a portion of its ranking power, or "juice" , to the destination. This concept is closely tied to how PageRank works: pages that receive more links from authoritative sources accumulate more ranking power, which in turn can improve their position in search engine results.

The amount of link juice passed depends on several factors, including the linking page's own authority, the number of outbound links on that page (the juice is divided among them), and whether the link is dofollow or nofollow. Internal links are especially valuable because, unlike external links, you have full control over how link juice flows throughout your own site.

Link rot is the gradual process of links becoming broken over time as pages are moved, renamed, redesigned, or deleted without proper redirects in place. It affects both internal and external links, but internal link rot is entirely within your control and is particularly damaging because it degrades the very structure you have built to help users and search engines navigate your site. As websites evolve, pages get reorganized, URLs change, old content is archived, the risk of link rot increases unless links are actively monitored and maintained.

Navigation links are the links found in a website's header, sidebar, dropdown menus, and other persistent navigation elements that help users move between sections of a site. Unlike contextual links embedded within body content, navigation links appear consistently across multiple pages and serve as the primary wayfinding mechanism for visitors. They typically point to your most important pages (homepage, product pages, category pages, and key resources) and establish the top level of your site's structure.

Orphan pages are pages on your website that no other page links to. They may exist in your CMS, appear in your XML sitemap or even be indexed, but visitors cannot reach them by clicking through your site, and search engine crawlers can only discover them through the sitemap or external links.

Orphan pages usually appear by accident: a blog post that was never linked, a landing page built for a campaign, a CMS item that dropped out of a limited collection list, or a page whose only link was removed during a redesign.

PageRank is the foundational algorithm developed by Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, that measures the importance of a webpage based on the quantity and quality of links pointing to it. The core idea is simple: a link from one page to another acts as a vote of confidence. Pages that receive more votes from important pages are themselves considered more important. While Google's ranking algorithm has evolved enormously since PageRank was introduced, the fundamental principle of link-based authority remains central to how search engines evaluate pages.

PageRank flows through links. When a page with high PageRank links to another page, it passes a portion of its authority. The amount passed depends on the linking page's own PageRank and how many outbound links it contains, the more links on a page, the less PageRank each individual link passes. This is why understanding link juice and link equity distribution is critical for any SEO strategy.

A pillar page is a comprehensive, long-form page that covers a broad topic in depth and links out to related cluster content that explores specific subtopics. It serves as the central authority piece for a given subject area, providing readers with a thorough overview while directing them to more detailed resources through internal links. Pillar pages are the foundation of topic clusters and function as the hub in a hub and spoke model, tying together all content related to a core theme.

Semantic relevance describes how closely related the content of two linked pages is in meaning and topic. When you link from a page about "Webflow SEO best practices" to a page about "internal linking strategies," the semantic relevance is high because both topics share a strong conceptual relationship. In contrast, linking from that same SEO page to an unrelated product page about cooking supplies would have low semantic relevance. Search engines evaluate these relationships using natural language processing to determine whether a link genuinely connects related ideas or is arbitrary.

A silo structure is a method of organizing website content into distinct thematic categories, or "silos," where pages within the same silo are heavily interlinked while cross-linking between silos is minimized. Each silo focuses on a specific topic and contains a hierarchy of pages, from a broad category page down to specific subtopic pages. The goal is to create clear, focused topical sections that send strong relevance signals to search engines about each area of your site's expertise.

The silo concept originated from the idea that search engines better understand a site's relevance when related content is grouped together rather than scattered randomly. While strict siloing (zero cross-links) has given way to more flexible approaches like topic clusters, the core principle remains valuable: organized content outperforms disorganized content. A well-planned silo structure supports a strong content hierarchy and improves overall site architecture.

Site architecture refers to the structure and organization of pages and content on a website. It defines how pages are grouped, nested, and connected through internal links, forming the blueprint that both users and search engines use to navigate and understand your site. A well-planned site architecture creates logical pathways from broad category pages down to specific content pieces, establishing a clear content hierarchy. Whether you adopt a flat site architecture or a more layered silo structure, the goal is to make every important page easily discoverable.

A topic cluster is a content strategy that groups related pages around a central pillar page. The pillar page provides a broad overview of a topic, while cluster pages dive deep into specific subtopics. All cluster pages link back to the pillar, and the pillar links out to each cluster page, creating a tightly interconnected content structure. This approach mirrors how search engines understand topics, not as isolated keywords, but as networks of related concepts.

The topic cluster model replaced the older approach of targeting one keyword per page in isolation. By organizing content into clusters, you create clear topical relationships that help search engines understand the breadth and depth of your coverage. This model is closely related to the hub and spoke model and builds directly upon principles of silo structure.

Topical authority is a site's perceived expertise and credibility on a specific subject, as evaluated by search engines. A website builds topical authority by publishing comprehensive, interlinked content that covers a topic in depth, from broad overviews to specific subtopics. Rather than ranking individual pages in isolation, search engines increasingly evaluate whether an entire site demonstrates sufficient expertise to be considered a trusted source on a given subject.

Building topical authority requires more than just publishing a large volume of content. The pages must be well-organized into topic clusters and connected through strategic internal links. A pillar page serves as the central hub for a topic, linking out to detailed subtopic pages that link back. This interconnected structure signals to search engines that your site provides thorough, authoritative coverage.