Internal links

Internal links are the one ranking lever nobody else controls. Whether other sites link to you is somebody else's decision; how your own pages point at each other is entirely yours.

The Internal links view sits under the Fixes tab, headed Suggested links with the line "Review useful internal links and add them to your fix list."

Where they come from

The audit builds a map of your site while it reads it, and works out what each page is about. Suggestions come from the gap between those two: pages that cover related subjects and do not link to each other yet.

There is no button to generate them. They are produced by the audit itself, so a fresh audit means a fresh set. That was not always true, which is why some sites had an empty list for a long time.

Reading a suggestion

Each one names the page that should carry the link, the page it should point to, and the words to use. A typical row reads like an instruction rather than an observation:

"Add a link on Refund pointing to News. Word it News — or 'Redmonark Technologies LLP News'. Put it relevant section." <!-- example -->

Underneath is why: the two pages cover related topics and one never links to the other, so a link would help both readers and Google find it.

The wording matters as much as the link. The visible words of a link are one of the strongest signals about what the destination page is about, which is why the suggestion offers specific wording rather than leaving you to write "click here".

Accepting one

Waiting on you counts the ones you have not decided about, described as "Suggestions to say yes or no to."

Say yes and the suggestion joins your fix list. Say no and it goes away.

The list is already ordered so the best suggestions are at the top. There are search and filter controls, and the page says when to bother with them: "Only if the list gets long — by default the best suggestions are already at the top."

Making the change, and the check

Add the link on your own site, in the body text rather than the menu, using the suggested wording or something close to it. Then mark it done.

Rankbench fetches the page again and looks for that specific link. Three things can come back.

The link is there and points where it should, so the suggestion is confirmed.

The link is not on the page, and you are told so. Usually the change was made in a preview and never published.

The link exists but with different wording, or somewhere other than the body. That is reported as a mismatch rather than a pass, because a link in the footer with generic wording does not do the job the suggestion was describing.

This is the tightest check-back loop in the product, and the reason is that an internal link is specific enough to verify precisely.

Where to put the link

In the body text, not the menu. A link in the navigation appears on every page, which tells Google nothing about the relationship between these two in particular. A link inside a sentence, on a page about a related subject, is the whole point.

Where to go next

Working your fix list covers what happens after you accept. Topics groups the same pages by subject, which is the other way to spot a missing link.