Study first
Review the ideas behind the questions
Review link checks that affect discovery and trust before starting. Focus on whether links are crawlable, useful to readers, and qualified when money, users, or low trust are involved.
Make important links crawlable
Important pages should be reachable through links that crawlers can parse. A visible button or script event is not enough if the URL is hidden from the link markup.
- Crawlable links should use an anchor element with an href attribute.
- Links without an href attribute or tags that act like links through script events may not be reliably extracted.
- Every page the site cares about should have a link from at least one other page on the site.
In Practice
Check the actual markup
If a template uses clickable cards, confirm the card exposes a real anchor with an href. Do not rely on click handling alone for important URLs.
Do not strand important pages
A landing page in the sitemap can still be weakly connected. Add a useful internal link from a relevant page when the page matters.
Common mistakes
Treating a JavaScript click handler as equal to a crawlable link.
Use an anchor element with an href for important destination URLs.
Q&A
What markup makes an important link easier to crawl?
Use an anchor element with an href attribute for the destination URL.
How many internal links does an important page need at minimum?
It should have a link from at least one other page on the site.
Write anchors for readers first
Anchor text gives context to people and crawlers. The words in and around a link should explain the destination without turning the sentence into a keyword dump.
- Good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to both the current page and the destination page.
- For an image used as a link, descriptive image alt text can act as anchor text.
- Anchor text should be natural and should not force every related keyword into the linked text.
In Practice
Read the anchor by itself
If the link text says only Read more, users and crawlers get less context. Use concise words that identify the destination.
Keep surrounding text useful
Do not chain many links together without context. The sentence around each link can help readers understand the choice.
Common mistakes
Stuffing every target keyword into one anchor.
Use natural, concise anchor text that helps readers understand the destination.
Q&A
What makes anchor text useful?
It is descriptive, concise, relevant, and clear enough to make sense without relying on vague words.
Qualify links when trust or payment changes
Most normal links do not need a rel value. Qualification matters when the link is sponsored, user-generated, untrusted, or not meant to pass association.
- Paid links and advertisements should be marked with sponsored or nofollow, with sponsored preferred for paid placements.
- User-generated content links, such as comments and forum posts, should be marked with ugc or nofollow.
- For regular trusted links that should be fetched without qualification, no rel attribute is needed.
In Practice
Do not overuse nofollow internally
If the goal is to stop crawling a page on your own site, use the appropriate crawl control instead of putting nofollow on normal internal links.
Remember links can be found elsewhere
A qualified link is not a private wall. The linked page may still be found through sitemaps or links from other sites.
Common mistakes
Adding nofollow to every external source citation.
Use nofollow for untrusted cases, and leave regular trusted citations unqualified when there is no paid or UGC relationship.
Q&A
Which rel value is preferred for paid placements?
Use sponsored for advertisements or paid placements, with nofollow still acceptable for those links.