Start here
Before You Fix It: What This Check Means
Internal links distribute discovery and authority across your own page network. In plain terms, this checks whether the page links into the rest of your site in a crawl-friendly way. Scavo extracts internal `<a href>` links from the scanned page, normalizes them, and probes a sample.
Why this matters in practice: incorrect signals here can dilute indexing clarity and search traffic quality.
How to use this result: treat this as directional evidence, not final truth. Search indexing outcomes depend on crawler recrawl cadence and ranking systems outside your direct control. First, confirm the issue in live output: verify raw HTML output and crawler-facing validators Then ship one controlled change: Update stale internal URLs to live canonical targets. Finally, re-scan the same URL to confirm the result improves.
Background sources
TL;DR: Some pages have too few internal links pointing to them, limiting their crawlability and ranking potential.
URLs with 40-44 internal links receive 4x more Google traffic than URLs with 0-4 internal links (Internal Linking SEO study, 2024). A SearchPilot experiment found that expanding internal links yielded a 5% uplift in organic traffic to destination pages, with another project seeing a 9,500 weekly increase in organic visits within three weeks. Orphaned pages with no internal links stay invisible to both crawlers and users.
What Scavo checks (plain English)
Scavo extracts internal <a href> links from the scanned page, normalizes them, and probes a sample.
Key behavior:
- Only HTTP/HTTPS links are considered.
- Non-web schemes (
mailto:,tel:,javascript:,data:) are ignored. - Links are treated as internal when they match the same host or base domain.
- Scavo samples up to 8 internal URLs and sends HEAD probes.
Exact logic:
Warning: no internal links found.Fail: sampled broken links are 2+ OR broken rate is 25%+.Warning: exactly 1 sampled broken link.Info: no sampled broken links but fewer than 3 total internal links.Pass: healthy sampled links and enough internal link presence.
How Scavo scores this check
Scavo assigns one result state for this check on the tested page:
- Pass: baseline signals for this check were found.
- Warning: partial coverage or risk signals were found and should be reviewed.
- Fail: required signals were missing or risky behavior was confirmed.
- Info: Scavo could not gather enough reliable evidence on this run to score pass/fail confidently.
In your scan report, this appears under What failed / What needs attention / What is working for internal_links, followed by Recommended next steps and Technical evidence (for developers) when needed.
- Scan key:
internal_links - Category:
SEO
Why fixing this matters
Internal links shape crawl paths, user journeys, and discovery of high-value pages. Broken internal links waste crawl budget and create dead ends for visitors.
Common reasons this check flags
- Links point to old slugs after content migrations.
- Navigation and footer links diverge from current routing.
- Relative paths break after base-path/deployment changes.
- Redirect cleanup left internal links pointing at removed URLs.
If you are not technical
- Ask your team to fix broken internal links first (highest impact).
- Then ask for stronger linking from this page to related key pages.
- Prioritize top funnel pages and navigation blocks.
- Re-run scan and confirm status improves.
Technical handoff message
Copy and share this with your developer.
Scavo flagged Internal links (internal_links). Please repair broken internal URLs found on this page and ensure at least a few meaningful internal links remain. Verify sampled links return healthy HTTP status and re-run the scan.If you are technical
- Update stale internal URLs to live canonical targets.
- Reduce redirect hops in internal linking where possible.
- Ensure page includes contextual links to relevant destination pages.
- Re-check generated links from CMS modules/components.
- Add automated link-checking in CI or content publish flows.
How to verify
- Click-test key internal links manually.
- Run
curl -Ion formerly broken URLs and confirm 2xx/3xx expected behavior. - Confirm page has at least 3 meaningful internal links where appropriate.
- Re-run Scavo and confirm warning/fail clears.
What this scan cannot confirm
- It only samples up to 8 internal links on this URL.
- It does not score anchor text quality.
- It does not find orphan pages by itself.
- HEAD probes can be inconclusive if environments block scanning.
Owner checklist
- [ ] Assign an owner for internal linking health and migration QA.
- [ ] Add route-change checklist that updates internal links.
- [ ] Include link health checks in release or publishing workflows.
- [ ] Review core conversion pages monthly for broken/stale links.
FAQ
Why can this fail if only a few links are broken?
Because the check uses sampled link reliability. Two broken links in a small sample can indicate broader content hygiene problems.
Why do some links appear as inconclusive?
Some servers block or rate-limit probe methods (for example HEAD with 405/429). Scavo records these as inconclusive, not broken.
Does this check include external links?
No. It is focused on internal crawl path quality.
Is “few internal links” always bad?
Not always. Very short pages can naturally have fewer links, which is why this state is Info, not fail.
Sources
- Google Search Central: Make your links crawlable
- Google Search Central: SEO starter guide
- RFC 9110: HTTP Semantics
Need help defining internal-link rules for nav, footer, and in-content blocks? Send support your key destination URLs.
