E-commerce internal linking: channeling authority to the pages that sell

An e-commerce site can have excellent categories and very good facets, and still see them barely crawled, poorly understood or undervalued by Google. Most of the time, the problem is not the page itself but the way it is connected to the rest of the site. Internal linking is the circulatory system of SEO: it decides where Google's attention goes.

The three roles of internal linking

1. Discovery. Google mainly finds pages by following links. A facet that is only accessible through a JavaScript filter form may never be crawled.
2. Understanding. The text of the links pointing to a page, the anchor, helps Google understand its topic. Ten links reading "linen fitted sheets" to the same page are a clear signal.
3. Hierarchy. A page that receives many internal links, from pages that are themselves important, is perceived as more important. You decide where to concentrate that importance.

Which pages should receive the most links

On an online store, the answer follows from the value of the pages. The categories and facets that match strong transactional queries are the ones that bring in the most, as we show in our analysis of e-commerce SEO traffic. They are the ones that should be best connected.

Conversely, many sites unintentionally concentrate their links on pages with no stakes: account pages, terms and conditions, sorting filters, paginated pages, all linked from every page of the site through the menu and the footer.

The building blocks of good e-commerce internal linking

The menu: the structure

The main menu provides the overall hierarchy: main categories, then subcategories. It must contain the strategic categories, with labels that match buyers' words. A menu with 400 links helps no one; a clear menu, pointing to the main categories, which in turn point to their subcategories, conveys the hierarchy better.

The breadcrumb: the path back up

The breadcrumb (Home > Bed linen > Fitted sheets > 160x200 fitted sheets) links each page to its parents. It strengthens intermediate categories and helps Google understand the tree structure, all the more so if it is marked up with structured data.

Links between categories: the depth

This is the most underused building block. On each category, a block of links to:

• the most in-demand facets ("160x200 fitted sheets", "Linen fitted sheets", "Extra deep");
• sister categories useful to the same buyer (fitted sheets, duvet covers, pillowcases);
• complementary categories (mattress toppers, mattress protectors).

These links serve a dual purpose: they help the visitor who did not find what they were looking for, and they channel authority toward long-tail pages. It is also the best way to make your indexed facets accessible to Google.

Links in category copy: the context

The category SEO copy is a natural support for contextual links: "for thick mattresses, choose our extra deep fitted sheets". These links, surrounded by explanatory copy, are among the most telling for Google.

Links from articles: the transfer

Blog articles attract visitors and, sometimes, links from other sites. Internal linking makes it possible to transfer part of that value to categories. The rule: every article links back to the relevant categories, in the body of the text, with a descriptive anchor. HubSpot observed that links placed within the text generated between 47 and 93% of the leads from its articles, far more than end-of-page banners.

Anchors: writing to be understood

Google recommends descriptive anchors that clearly indicate the topic of the destination page.

Vary the wording naturally rather than mechanically repeating the same exact anchor everywhere: the goal is to be clear, not to hammer a keyword.

Common mistakes

• Facets accessible only through filters, with no regular internal link.
• Links to URLs that redirect or return an error, after a redesign or the removal of a category.
• Orphan pages: categories that exist in the sitemap but receive no links.
• Articles that link back to no category, capturing traffic without ever directing it toward sales.
• Several pages linked with the same anchor for the same query, which fuels cannibalization.

Where to start

1. List your strategic categories and facets: the ones targeting the most searched transactional queries.
2. Check how many internal links they receive with a crawler or the Links report in Google Search Console.
3. Add link blocks to the most in-demand facets on each parent category.
4. Revisit your most visited articles to add contextual links to categories.
5. Fix broken links and internal redirects.

What unblind does for your internal linking

Good internal linking does not compensate for poorly optimized pages: the categories receiving those links must have tags and copy that live up to them. That is the part unblind automates. And its category copy is written to serve internal linking: when the page displays a parent category or subcategories, the copy names them once with their usual label, where that helps users choose, so they can carry an internal link, without ever developing their topic in their place.