Internal Links
Orphans · broken outbound · redirect chains · anchor overuse · deep pages — plus paste-ready anchor suggestions.
What it is
Internal Links crawls your whole site (using your sitemap, then following links), builds a graph of every page-to-page link, and surfaces eight finding panels: orphan pages (zero inbound links), under-linked pages, broken internal links, plus four killer rules — broken outbound links, redirect chains, anchor overuse, and deep pages (click-depth ≥ 4 from the homepage). Brain then reads the whole graph and (a) writes a fact-checked expert breakdown of what's strong and broken, and (b) suggests exact paste-ready anchor text to link your orphans from the right hub page. A 'Since last crawl' strip shows what's changed, and a built-in scheduler can auto-scan weekly or monthly.
Why it matters
Internal linking is the single most under-rated SEO lever. Adding one well-placed internal link from a high-authority page to a weak page can move the weak page from position #14 to #6. No new content, no new backlinks — just plumbing. Most owners never look at their internal link graph — and even fewer notice when an outbound link starts 404ing or a redirect chain quietly burns crawl budget.
How to use it (step-by-step)
Follow these in order. Each step is 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
Diagnose
Internal Links — euromotion.fr
Section · Graph analysis
Analyze the link graph
Click Analyze graph for a consultant-grade breakdown of your link structure.
Section · Anchor suggestions
Paste-ready anchor text for every orphan
Click Get suggestions for paste-ready anchor text per orphan.
Section · Site architecture
Your link graph · force-directed
Step 1
Pick a project and click 'Scan now'
We fetch your sitemap (or crawl the site), follow every internal link, HEAD-check every external link, capture redirect chains, and BFS-compute click depth from your homepage. Takes ~30–60 seconds. The result auto-saves, so next time you open the page it's already loaded.
Step 2
Read the KPIs + 'Since last crawl' strip
Pages crawled, Orphans, Under-linked, Broken at a glance. If you have 2+ scans on record, a one-line delta strip shows you what changed since last time — no thinking required.
Step 3
Work the finding panels top-down
Beyond orphans, four killer-rule panels render when there's something to show: Broken outbound (external URLs that returned 4xx/5xx), Redirect chains (A → B → C — fix to A → C), Anchor overuse (one phrase used too many times for one URL), and Deep pages (click-depth ≥ 4 — Google gives up before reaching them).
Step 4
Click 'Analyze with AI' (2 credits)
Brain reads the crawl and writes a fact-checked consultant-grade breakdown — what's strong, what's broken, and the top actions in priority order. The output runs through our shared fact-check pass so it never invents features your site doesn't have. Saved analyses are free to re-open.
Step 5
Fix orphans with 'Get suggestions' (1 credit) — or bulk
For each orphan, Brain picks the best hub page to link from and writes a natural anchor text — copy it straight into your CMS. If you have 10+ orphans, a 'Suggest anchors for all orphans' button appears (2 credits flat) so you can do them all in one shot.
Step 6
Expand the page tables (paginated 30/page)
Top Hubs · All Pages · Orphan Pages · Duplicate URLs · Gated Pages — each table paginates at 30 rows so big sites don't crash the browser. Every row shows the URL + IN (inbound) and OUT (outbound) internal-link counts.
Step 7
Schedule auto-scans
On the Schedule card, pick weekly or monthly + day + hour-UTC. Outerank will re-crawl automatically and surface significant changes (orphans appearing, broken links rising) in your Brain feed.
Step 8
Implement → compare scans
Add the links, wait for the next auto-scan (or re-scan manually), and use the History tab's 'Compare scans' (up to 4 side-by-side) to prove your fixes worked.
Map your full link graph in 30 seconds.
Outerank fetches your sitemap, then follows every internal link to build a real graph of your site — every page, every edge, every anchor. We also HEAD-check every external link, capture redirect chains, and BFS-compute click depth from your homepage. No sampling, no GSC-only blind spots. The result auto-saves so reopening the page is instant.
- Sitemap-first + follow-the-links crawl
- HEAD-checks every external link for 4xx/5xx (broken outbound)
- Captures redirect chains (A → B → C hop count) via response history
- BFS-computes click depth from the homepage for every page
- Canonical consolidation built in — variants collapse, with a decision log
- Detects JS-only navigation (the classic broken language-switcher pattern)
Crawl progress · live
Brain reads the whole graph and tells you what to fix.
Click 'Analyze graph' (2 credits) and Outerank Brain writes a fact-checked consultant-grade breakdown: what's strong, what's broken, the top actions in priority order. Output runs through the same shared fact-check pass Site Audit uses — fake AI-portal phrases get stripped, promised-outcome wording gets softened, every analysis ends with a visible fact-check footer.
- Plain-English breakdown — what's strong, what's broken
- Priority order — the 3 fixes worth doing this week
- References your real hubs and orphans by URL
- Fact-check pass on every analysis · visible footer
- Saved analyses are free to re-open forever
Brain analysis · excerpt
Snapshot · Your site has 7 orphans (8% of pages) — your biggest leak.
What to do · Add 6–9 internal links from /blog and your top product posts to fix the orphans.
Estimated impact · +3–5 ranking positions on the under-linked pages within 4 weeks.
Paste-ready anchor text for every orphan.
'Get suggestions' (1 credit) gives you, per orphan, the best hub to link from and the exact anchor text to use. Got 10+ orphans? A bulk button appears at 2 credits flat — do them all in one shot. Copy-paste it straight into your CMS — no thinking required. Anchors are varied naturally so Google doesn't read it as keyword-stuffing.
- Per orphan: best hub + paste-ready anchor (1 credit)
- Bulk mode — all orphans at once (2 credits flat, appears at 10+)
- Anchor variation built in — no over-optimization
- Works for under-linked pages too, not just orphans
Anchor suggestions · paste-ready
| Orphan | ← Link from hub | Anchor text |
|---|---|---|
| /products/red-shoes | /blog/seasonal-trends | "our handmade leather shoes" |
| /posts/2026-trends | /blog | "2026 leather trends report" |
| /lookbook | /products | "see our seasonal lookbook" |
Prove the fixes worked — automatically.
Set a weekly or monthly auto-scan and forget it. The 'Since last crawl' strip on the Overview shows what changed at a glance. Use the History tab to compare up to 4 scans side-by-side — orphan count goes down, top-hubs inbound count goes up, broken-outbound resolves. The compare view is what you screenshot to send to a client.
- Auto-schedule weekly or monthly — pick day + hour-UTC
- 'Since last crawl' delta strip on every Overview
- Compare up to 4 scans side-by-side
- Track orphan + under-linked + broken trends over time
- Brain delta surfaces significant changes in your feed
Compare scans · last 4
↘ Orphans down 50% over 3 weeks
Why Outerank Internal Links
Things Ahrefs and Screaming Frog don't do.
The actual differentiators — not features, but the workflow advantages you'll feel on day one.
Paste-ready anchor suggestions
Ahrefs and Screaming Frog show you the graph and dump 200 rows. We tell you WHICH hub to link from and WHAT anchor text to use — copy-paste straight into your CMS.
Real crawl, not GSC sampling
We fetch your sitemap and follow every internal link. No 'top 1000 pages' caps, no Google Search Console blind spots. The graph is the truth.
Force-directed architecture map
Visualize your hubs, normal pages, and orphans on a force-directed graph. See depth and authority distribution at a glance — no pivot tables required.
Brain reads the graph for you
Click 'Analyze graph' and Outerank Brain writes a plain-English breakdown — what's strong, what's broken, what to fix this week. Not a generic checklist.
Compare scans over time
Re-scan weekly. The History tab compares up to 4 scans side-by-side so you can prove your fixes worked. Client-ready screenshots in one click.
JS-nav detection
Catches the classic broken-language-switcher pattern (JS <select> instead of crawlable <a>) that Frog misses — pages that look orphaned are actually unreachable.
4 killer rules — beyond orphans
Broken outbound (every external URL HEAD-checked for 4xx/5xx) · Redirect chains (every A → B → C surfaced with hop count) · Anchor overuse (one phrase used too many times for one URL) · Deep pages (click_depth ≥ 4 from homepage). Each renders as its own panel only when there's something to fix.
Built-in crawl scheduler
Pick weekly or monthly + day + hour-UTC. We dispatch at minute=10 of every hour into the same /scan queue as manual runs. Significant changes (new orphans, broken-outbound rising) surface in your Brain feed automatically.
Bulk anchor mode
Per-orphan suggestions are 1 credit each. With 10+ orphans, a 'Suggest anchors for all orphans' button appears at 2 credits flat — clear the backlog in one click. Same anchor-variation guarantees, no over-optimization risk.
Fact-checked AI analysis
Brain's analysis runs through the same shared fact-check pass Site Audit uses. Banned phrases get struck through with a red badge, promised-outcome wording gets softened, every output ends with a visible fact-check footer. No other internal-links tool guards against AI making things up.
What costs credits
No surprises. Browsing and viewing saved results is always free.
Pro tips
- →Your homepage is the highest-authority page on your site. Every internal link FROM the homepage is gold — be deliberate about which 5–10 pages you link to.
- →The Anchor Overuse panel exists because Google penalizes over-optimization. If 65% of your inbound anchors say 'click here' or 'best leather bags', diversify. Brain's anchor suggestions already vary phrasing for you.
- →Pages with click_depth ≥ 4 from the homepage often get ignored by Google. The Deep Pages panel surfaces them so you can flatten your structure by linking them from a strong hub.
- →Redirect chains (A → B → C) silently waste crawl budget and drop a bit of PageRank at each hop. The Redirect Chains panel flags chains of 2+ hops — fix each chain to a direct A → C link.
- →Broken outbound links damage your perceived quality (Google notices when you ship traffic into 404s). The Broken Outbound panel is a HEAD-check pass — fix or replace each one.
- →'Gated pages' (login/app pages) are listed separately and on purpose — they're not orphans, they're just not meant to be public, so don't try to 'fix' them.
Plain-English glossary
Every bit of jargon on this page, explained.
- Internal link
- A link from one page on your site to another page on the same site (not to an outside website).
- IN (inbound)
- How many internal links point TO this page from elsewhere on your site. More inbound = more authority Google gives it.
- OUT (outbound)
- How many internal links this page sends OUT to other pages on your site.
- Orphan page
- A page with ZERO inbound internal links. Google can barely find or rank it. The #1 thing to fix.
- Under-linked page
- A page with very few inbound links — not invisible, but starved of authority. Add a couple of links to boost it.
- Hub
- One of your strongest pages (lots of inbound links). Linking FROM a hub passes the most authority.
- Gated page
- A page behind login or inside the app (not meant to be public). Listed separately so it's not mistaken for an orphan.
- Broken outbound link
- An external URL you link to that now returns 4xx/5xx. Google notices when you ship traffic into 404s.
- Redirect chain
- A → B → C — every extra hop burns crawl budget and drops a bit of PageRank. Should be A → C directly.
- Anchor overuse
- Using the same anchor text too many times to point at one URL. Google can read it as keyword manipulation.
- Click depth
- How many clicks from the homepage it takes to reach a page. Pages at depth ≥ 4 often get ignored by Google.
- Fact-check footer
- Every Brain-written analysis ends with a small visible footer marking the AI pass and any softened/struck claims. Same guardrails Site Audit uses.
Questions, answered
Site Audit FAQs
Does scanning cost credits?
What's a redirect chain and why does it matter?
What's the difference between an orphan and a deep page?
Why are some of my pages in 'Gated pages' instead of the main list?
I added links but the orphan count didn't change. Why?
Can Brain hallucinate features my site doesn't have?
How we compare
Honest comparison — where we win, where the big tools win.
vs. Ahrefs Internal Backlinks
Ahrefs has the data but no AI suggestions, no broken-outbound HEAD check, no anchor-overuse rule, no auto-scheduler. You sift through a giant report. We give you a prioritized to-do list with paste-ready anchors.
vs. Screaming Frog
Frog shows the graph and the killer-rule data, but you still have to interpret it. We surface each finding as its own panel with the right metric (status code · hop count · ratio · click_depth) and write a plain-English action plan.
Ready to try Internal Links?
Open it on one of your projects.
Come back here whenever you need a refresher.