Internal Linking Benefits: How Internal Links Help UX and SEO

Internal links help make your site navigable for users, and can also boost individual pages’ search visibility. One study found that URLs with 40 to 44 internal links receive four times more traffic than those with zero to four internal links. Properly interlinking product pages, collection pages, landing pages, and blog posts can direct your audience to the pages where conversion is most likely.

Internal linking benefits users and search engines, and, ultimately, your business. It strengthens your site architecture, improves SEO performance, and ensures your most valuable pages get the visibility they deserve. Here’s what you need to know.

What is internal linking?

Internal links connect pages within the same domain with the goal of keeping visitors on the site.

Internal and external links serve different purposes. External links point to other websites, helping build credibility by referencing trustworthy sources and topical relevance by connecting pages to other relevant content. 

Internal links, on the other hand, serve to:

• Connect pages within your site, helping users find relevant content

• Help search engines crawl your pages and understanding its structure

• Signal to search engines which pages are most important

• Distribute authority between pages

Search engine crawlers navigate websites by following links. The more internal links between relevant pages, the easier it is for search engine crawlers to review your code, understand your site architecture, and determine which pages should rank in search results.

Internal links matter just as much for human visitors. The same paths that lead search engines to deeper pages also lead users down the funnel toward relevant pages (i.e., the content and products they’re looking for).

Types of internal links

There are several types of internal links that contribute to a strong internal linking structure:

• Navigational links. Found in your main menu and category pages, these define how sections of your site are organized and help users reach key pages.

• Contextual internal links. These are hyperlinks placed naturally within content, such as linking from a blog post to a relevant product page.

• Footer links. Located at the bottom of pages, these provide site-wide access to important sections, like the blog or shipping and return information.

• Product-to-product links. These are links between product pages that surface related topics. For example, pants linking to a matching shirt.

• Collection links. These links connect category pages to individual product pages, strengthening internal links pointing to high-value pages. For example, a wallet category page will have links to each style.

• Breadcrumb navigation. A secondary navigation, usually at the top of a page, breadcrumbs clarify a user’s path through your site structure—for example, Home > Category > Subcategory > Product. This directs users back to other pages and helps users and search engines trace a clear path through your site.

• Images and buttons. Internal links go beyond text. Buttons and images can serve as links when they contain hyperlinks that direct users to another page on your website.

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Internal linking benefits

• Helps search engines crawl, index, and rank your site
• Distributes link equity across your site
• Strengthens site architecture
• Improves user engagement

A strong internal linking structure—built by connecting related pages across your site—offers several key benefits:

Helps search engines crawl, index, and rank your site

Google Search Central’s documentation explains that internal links help crawlers find pages and understand how content across a site is connected. When you add internal links, you create pathways that help search engines crawl your entire website, ensuring new pages and deeper pages are quickly discovered. Without them, pages become orphaned—meaning no internal links point to them—which makes it difficult for search engines to find and index them at all.

Beyond crawling, a robust internal linking strategy reinforces topic clusters, surfaces relevant content, and clarifies the relationships between different pages, all of which support better search visibility. 

Distributes link equity across your site

Internal links help distribute link equity or ranking power—also known as “link juice”—from authoritative pages to others. If a page has a strong backlink profile—meaning it’s earned a large number of high-quality links from other websites—linking from that page to another passes on some of that link equity. This strengthens page authority across your entire website. 

For example, if a blog post has earned backlinks from external sites, adding internal links from that post to relevant product pages helps strengthen those pages too.

Footwear brand Allbirds does this well, linking from educational content such as sustainability guides to product pages, distributing link equity to pages that drive revenue.

Strengthens site architecture

A logical site architecture—how pages on a website are organized—makes it easier for users and search engines to navigate your store. 

Strategic internal linking reinforces a top-down hierarchy: Homepage > Collection > Product pages. In this example, the homepage links to product collection pages, and each collection page links to an individual product.

You can also link between pages that aren’t within the same collection if they’re contextually relevant. For example, Gymshark links from tops to matching sweatpants, even though tops and sweatpants are in different clothing categories.

Improves user engagement

Good internal links direct users to relevant pages, increasing time on site and improving user engagement. For example, a buying guide that links to the products it mentions helps shoppers move seamlessly from research to purchase. Soko Glam’s 10-Step Korean Skincare Routine guide links to a best selling product at each step.

Internal linking best practices

• Use descriptive anchor text
• Don’t include too many internal links on one page
• Fix broken links regularly
• Link to canonical URLs
• Track performance

To maximize the benefits of internal linking, follow these internal linking best practices:

Use descriptive anchor text

Use clear, keyword-rich anchor text instead of generic phrases like “click here.” Descriptive anchor text improves clarity for both users and search engines. 

For example, “Finish your routine with our [hydrating hyaluronic acid night cream],” is far more useful than “check out this product”—and the link points directly to /products/hydrating-hyaluronic-acid-night-cream.

Shopify’s rich text editor makes it easy to add internal links when editing product descriptions or blog content.

Don’t include too many internal links on one page

Too many internal links can overwhelm users and reduce link value. Focus on quality over quantity. Rather than linking out to as many unrelated pages as possible, choose only the ones most contextually relevant to the content they’re being linked from.

Fix broken links regularly

Broken links harm both usability and SEO. Regularly audit your internal pages to ensure links function properly. Apps like SEO Manager, available from the Shopify App Store, can automatically scan for broken internal links and alert you when issues arise.

Link to canonical URLs

When creating internal links, make sure they point to the canonical URL of a product page—the preferred, primary URL. For example, Shopify can generate multiple URLs for the same product depending on how it’s accessed through collections, but only the canonical URL gets the full SEO benefit. If you link to a non-canonical URL, you dilute your link equity. 

As a rule, link to yourshop.com/products/product-slug rather than a URL that includes a collection path like yourshop.com/collections/collection-name/products/product-slug. This focuses your link equity on the page you want ranking in search results.

Track performance

Monitor SEO performance and search engine rankings using Shopify’s built-in SEO overview tools. Track:

• Changes in search visibility. This helps you see whether your pages appear more often in search results as you improve your internal linking.

• Rankings in search engine results pages. This helps you understand whether your target keywords are moving up or down as new links are added.

• Traffic to valuable pages. This tracks whether traffic to key pages, such as products or buying guides, is improving as you strengthen links.

Use this data to refine your internal linking strategy over time. For example, if a page ranking is just shy of the top 10, adding some links from high-authority pages can help push it over the edge.