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October 27, 2025

# Does Internal Linking Strategy Still Matter in 2026?

Short answer: yes, but not for the reason it used to.

The old thinking was: Linking every occurrence of a keyword sitewide to the same page, which reads as manipulative over-optimization rather than genuine navigation. That framing is dated — search engines have gotten much better at figuring things out without hand-holding. But 'search engines can cope without it' isn't the same as 'it doesn't matter.'

What actually changed is who benefits. Link from your highest-authority pages (usually the homepage and top organic-traffic pages) down to newer or underperforming content that needs a boost. That's less about appeasing an algorithm and more about not wasting the crawl/attention you already have.

The practical test isn't whether it's trendy — it's whether skipping it creates work for someone else later (a crawler, a future you, a user). By that test, internal linking strategy still earns its place.

Same question, different tool: does broken links (404 errors) still matter?

Internal Link Suggestion Tool either way — checking takes longer to read about than to do.

Try Internal Link Suggestion Tool yourself

Everything in this guide runs directly in your browser — no signup, no install.

Open Internal Link Suggestion Tool →
More on internal linking strategy
The Internal Linking Strategy Checklist: What to Verify Before You Publish
A short, practical checklist for internal linking strategy — the things worth checking every time, not just the first time.
Internal Link Suggestion Tool vs. Doing It by Hand: Is It Worth Switching?
A practical look at what Internal Link Suggestion Tool actually saves you over doing internal linking strategy manually, and when manual still makes sense.
Internal Linking Strategy FAQ: Questions People Actually Ask
Straight answers to the questions that come up most often about internal linking strategy.
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