Planning and maintaining internal links to support navigation, content discovery, and relationships between pages.
Internal linking is the ongoing work of connecting a website’s pages into useful journeys. An internal link is one connection; internal linking considers the whole pattern. It asks which pages should introduce a topic, where supporting detail belongs and how a visitor reaches a practical next step without repeatedly returning to the homepage.
The work includes both shared navigation and links inside individual pages. A menu can expose major sections, but it cannot explain every relationship between a detailed guide, a relevant service and a particular product. Contextual links can make those smaller connections. There is no need to link every mention of a subject or make every page point to every other page.
Maintenance matters as much as adding new links. When a business retires an offer, combines two guides or creates a useful resource, the routes into that content may need attention. A simple record of important destination pages and the places that should reference them can make the work manageable without turning it into an indiscriminate link-building exercise.
Takeaway: Plan links around real reader tasks, then review those routes when content changes. A clear path into a new page is more useful than publishing it and assuming visitors will find it.
Example
A pet-supply retailer publishes a guide to measuring a dog for a harness. It links to the guide from relevant harness product pages and links back from the guide to the appropriate product category. When the measuring instructions change, the team updates one guide rather than copying conflicting instructions across every product.
What to check
Review important pages with few or no internal links pointing to them. Decide where the page genuinely belongs before adding it to a footer or unrelated article. Confirm the surrounding wording remains useful after the link is inserted.
For more detail, see Google link best practices.