Internal Links

[CoachingToolbox]

I have a page that I am working to rank.  Open Site Explorer shows that I have 69 internal links and a competitive site (ranked #4) has 822 internal links.

The page I am looking to rank is on my main navigation menu so it should have an incoming link from every page on my site.  My site is 6 years old and has 497 pages indexed according to Google Webmaster Tools.  What do I need to do to improve the number of internal links that are being recognized?

[iSTORM-New-Media]

Simply in terms of internal links, are you looking at the page metrics or domain metrics? Could you also provide a link

[JaneCopland]

Hi there,

The internal link number isn't the best metric to go on when looking at authority - if it were, you could rely on a page with 100,000 internal pages to have the best rankings because all those pages link to each other. Far more importance is placed on inbound links.

The importance of inbound links is to ensure PageRank is being properly passed around the website, especially from top pages like the home page and other strong internal pages to the page you are interested in having rank.

I am not sure why OSE wouldn't have picked up all of your pages - I take it that those 400+ pages are not indexed in OSE at all?

[CoachingToolbox]

Thanks for your response! I am looking at page metrics for internal links.

The URL is http://www.coachingtoolbox.net/filingcabinet/basketball-quotes.html and I am looking to rank for the term Basketball Quotes

Thank you!

[CoachingToolbox]

Hi Jane,

Thanks for your reply!  I am not sure how to tell if the pages are indexed in OSE.

I have a competitor's site that is ranked #4 for the term I am looking to rank for.  OSE says he has 822 Internal links with 1 external link.  OSE says I have 69 internal links and 32 external links.

That is why I thought I needed to look at my internal links to compete with him.

Thank you.

Brian Williams

[iSTORM-New-Media]

The reality is that there are only that many internal links on that page. Moz is probably capturing all of them. If you wanted to increase that number, you would have to add more links in your content, header, footer, etc. Your site in total has something like 2,500 total internal links (between all the pages on your site).

As Jane as put though, internal links are a very small SEO factor only and really are only key in spreading link equity and PageRank around to different pages of your site.

If that page is in your nav then your are going to pass a lot of good equity on your site to that page. But you should also add other text links in your content with different anchor text to diversify the anchor text linked to the page.

[CoachingToolbox]

Thanks, I appreciate your time and expertise!

[iSTORM-New-Media]

No problem Good luck!