What the internal link analyzer checks

Sixty pages. One link graph.

A bounded, honest sample of how your pages point at each other.

/sitemap.xml1,204 URLs
<urlset>
<loc>
200
<loc>
404
<lastmod>2026-09-01

Sitemap-driven sample

0 pts

Up to 60 pages chosen from your sitemap, spread across sections, plus the homepage. Falls back to homepage links when there is no sitemap.

Internal linksdepth ≤ 3
orphan

Link graph

0 pts

Every followable internal link between sampled pages, counted as inbound and outbound per page.

File health1 error
  • Disallow: / under User-agent: *
  • No Sitemap: line
  • Crawl-delay ignored by Googlebot
line 12

Orphan detection

0 pts

Pages in the sitemap that no sampled page links to. Crawlers reach them late, and they pass no authority.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/
Allow: /private/helplongest match wins
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /blocks everything

Click depth

0 pts

Breadth-first distance from the homepage. Pages beyond three clicks are flagged; unreachable pages are called out.

142 links checked2 broken
  • /pricing200
  • /docs/old-guide404
  • partner.com/page200
  • /blog/2021/post410

Weak pages

0 pts

Pages with only one or two inbound links, the easiest wins for contextual linking.

Domain RatingAhrefs
57Established · 40–59
NewGrowingStrongAuthority

Authority flow

0 pts

The most linked pages in the sample, so you can see whether your money pages are the ones receiving links.

Why it matters

Links you control. Authority you are wasting.

Backlinks are hard to earn. Internal links are free, and most sites leave the best pages with almost none.

01

Orphans are invisible

A page that nothing links to is found only through the sitemap, crawled rarely, and ranked as if nobody vouched for it. Every orphan is a page you paid to create and then hid.

Orphan detection
02

Depth is a ranking signal

Pages close to the homepage are crawled more and treated as more important. Anything beyond three clicks is telling Google it does not matter much.

Click depth
03

Internal links pass authority

Your homepage and top posts hold most of your authority. Contextual links from them to your money pages move rankings faster than most link building.

Authority flowWeak pages
How to improve

Link the orphans. Then flatten the depth.

  1. 1

    Give every orphan at least three inbound links

    Add contextual links from related posts and from the section hub page. Navigation links help crawlers; in-text links pass more relevance.

  2. 2

    Pull deep pages toward the homepage

    Link important deep pages from a hub or category page that is itself linked from the homepage or main navigation.

  3. 3

    Link from your most linked pages

    The top linked pages in the result hold the most authority. Add links from them to the pages you want to rank.

  4. 4

    Use descriptive anchor text

    Anchor text tells Google what the target is about. "Pricing for small teams" beats "click here".

  5. 5

    Re-run after publishing

    Every new post is a chance to link older pages. Check the graph after each batch of content.

Score after fixes
41 → 93
F
D
C
B
A
robots.txt
llms.txt
FAQPage

Internal links, placed for you

SiteLift links every new article to your related pages and updates older posts to point at new ones, so orphans never appear in the first place.

No credit card required

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about the internal link analyzer.

The tool fetches every sampled page live, and 60 keeps the run under a minute while covering the homepage, section pages and a spread of deeper pages. Orphans among those 60 are the ones that matter most.