Internal Link Opportunities
Learn how to evaluate contextual internal-link suggestions using source relevance, target importance, anchor text, crawlability, and user value.
Internal Link Opportunities uses completed crawl data to find pages with related topics that may benefit from a contextual link. Screpy reports a source URL, target URL, suggested anchor, matched topics, opportunity score, priority, and the number of possible source pages.
Internal linking is information architecture. A good link helps a reader continue a task, helps crawlers discover a page, and clarifies how content is related. The objective is not to maximize link count.
Read each suggestion
| Field | Question to ask |
|---|---|
| Source URL | Is this page a natural place to introduce the target? |
| Target URL | Is this the canonical, indexable page that should receive support? |
| Suggested anchor | Does the wording describe the destination in the sentence's context? |
| Matched topics | Are the detected topics genuinely related or only lexically similar? |
| Opportunity score / priority | Is the relationship strong enough to review first? |
| Source-page count | Is this a one-page opportunity or a repeated site pattern? |
The score ranks candidates. Read the source paragraph before approving a link.
What internal links can improve
- Discovery: crawlers and users can reach pages that are otherwise isolated.
- Context: surrounding text and anchor wording describe the relationship.
- Hierarchy: navigation and contextual links reveal important hubs and supporting pages.
- User journey: readers can move to definitions, comparisons, products, or next steps.
- Authority distribution: strong internal pages can support relevant deeper pages.
Google recommends crawlable <a> elements with resolvable destinations and descriptive, natural anchor text in its link best practices.
Evaluate an opportunity step by step
1. Validate the target
Open the target and confirm it is live, indexable, canonical, useful, and the best page for the topic. Do not strengthen a duplicate, redirect, thin filter page, or obsolete URL.
2. Validate the source context
Find the exact paragraph where the link could appear. The reader should reasonably benefit from opening the target at that moment. Shared words alone are not enough.
3. Write a natural anchor
Use concise wording that sets an accurate expectation. Avoid generic anchors such as “click here” when descriptive wording fits. Do not force exact-match keyword anchors repeatedly across many pages.
4. Check the destination's existing links
Review how many internal links already reach the target, which templates provide them, and whether important pages are missing contextual support. A sitewide footer link and an in-article contextual link serve different purposes.
5. Prefer meaningful editorial links
One useful link from a closely related, authoritative page can be more valuable than dozens of automated links from weak or irrelevant pages. Apply template-level links only when the relationship is valid for every affected page.
Build topic clusters without creating silos
A topic cluster normally has a broad hub and supporting pages that answer narrower needs. Supporting pages should link to the hub where useful, and the hub should expose important supporting content. Also connect related clusters when the user journey requires it; a strict isolated silo can make navigation less useful.
Common mistakes
- Linking every occurrence of a keyword.
- Repeating identical keyword-heavy anchors across the site.
- Adding links where the sentence does not support the destination.
- Linking to non-canonical or redirected URLs.
- Creating orphan pages and assuming the XML sitemap is enough.
- Hiding important links behind interactions crawlers may not resolve.
- Measuring success only by the number of links added.
Example
A guide about diagnosing traffic drops mentions declining click-through rate but does not explain it. A contextual link to a detailed CTR guide helps the reader continue the diagnosis. The anchor “organic click-through rate” is descriptive and natural. Linking the same CTR guide from an unrelated uptime article merely because both contain the word “performance” would not be justified.
Verify the change
Run a new crawl and confirm the source links directly to the intended final URL, the anchor is visible, and the target is no longer orphaned or underlinked. Then monitor the target's discovery, query coverage, impressions, and clicks over an appropriate period. Rankings are an outcome to observe, not proof that one link caused the change.