Google’s Search Advocate, John Mueller, has stated that linking to HTTP pages won’t impact the ranking of your website. In 2014, the HTTPs protocol started affecting rankings. In other words, users may get confused and end up on a site that isn’t secure. However, this won’t affect your ranking because Google doesn’t penalize sites that link to HTTPs pages.
As you’re creating your site, don’t forget to link to internal pages as well. Search engines take into account both the quality and trustworthiness of an external page as a factor when determining a page’s ranking. Links to your home page are often the same as those linking to your individual pages, which will make it hard for you to rank them on Google’s first page. Instead, focus on using anchor text and links that point to your internal pages.
While there are many benefits to using internal links, it is a good practice to use only relevant ones. Remember that search engines don’t like to index duplicate content, so use relevant text for your internal links and don’t use keywords in the anchor text. Additionally, links to low-quality pages should not be linked to. Broken links mess with the anchor text flow and Pagerank. 404 errors can be equally bad, but they’re a different animal altogether.
Incorporate relevant keywords and descriptions in your anchor text. This will boost your SEO efforts by helping readers to click on your link. Search engine spiders also factor in the anchor text when determining the target page. When building internal links, remember to use descriptive keywords that are related to your target keywords. Also, avoid shoe-horning your anchor text into sentences because it will look spammy to your readers. Once you’ve built the perfect anchor text, the next step is to write it in a natural language.
Internal linking can increase your rankings in SERPs and is a great way to update old content. However, it’s important to keep in mind that Google has a limit of 150 links per page, and over-linking can damage your SEO. The search engine prefers links to websites that have coherent architecture. If you have broken links, be sure to fix them. Those who are not updating their content should also avoid using this technique.
Having a clear navigation structure is important for both visitors and search engines. Google provides search results based on page level content, so it likes to know what role each page plays in the overall site. Having a good internal navigation structure can help your SEO. The key is to create a site that is easy to navigate. There are many ways to do this without breaking the design of your website. In this way, you’ll ensure your visitors find what they’re looking for.
Internal links can impact your website’s SEO, either negatively or positively. Linking to other websites with authoritative content will add value to the website and will boost your rankings. Google wants users to visit the most relevant websites.