What is Internal Linking in SEO?
Definition
Internal links are hyperlinks that connect one page on a website to another page on the same website. In SEO, internal linking is the practice of strategically linking between your own pages to: distribute ranking authority (link juice) from stronger pages to weaker ones; help search engines discover and crawl all your pages; guide users to related products and content; and signal to Google which pages are most important by how many internal links point to them.
Why Internal Links matters for Shopify stores
Internal linking is the most underused SEO tactic for Shopify stores — it's free, within your complete control, and has a measurable impact on how Google distributes ranking authority across your site. Your Shopify blog posts and high-traffic collection pages accumulate authority. Linking from those pages to your product pages and other collections passes authority forward, helping those target pages rank better. For new Shopify stores with few backlinks, internal linking from blog posts to product pages is one of the fastest ways to lift product page rankings.
Shopify example
A skincare Shopify store publishes a blog post 'how to build a skincare routine for combination skin' that ranks on page 1 for that query and receives 800 monthly visits. The post contains no internal links to products. After adding contextual links to their niacinamide serum, SPF moisturiser, and cleanser — each mentioned naturally in the post — those product pages receive 200 additional internal link-driven authority signals monthly. The serum page moves from position 14 to position 8 for its target keyword over 6 weeks.
How Sauron handles Internal Links
Sauron's blog post generator identifies natural internal link placement opportunities within generated content — suggesting which products and collections to link to from each article, with contextual anchor text.
See Blog Content Engine feature →Common mistakes
- ✕ Using only navigation links and ignoring contextual internal links within content
- ✕ Linking always from the homepage (high authority) but never from product pages or blog posts (where contextual links have more SEO value)
- ✕ Using generic anchor text ('click here', 'read more') instead of descriptive anchor text that tells Google what the linked page is about
- ✕ Creating orphan pages with no internal links pointing to them — Google has no way to discover or prioritise these pages
- ✕ Linking to every product from every page — dilutes the authority signal; focused internal linking is more powerful
Questions about Internal Links
How many internal links should each Shopify page have? +
There's no fixed number — the principle is that every page should be reachable within 3 clicks from the homepage (to support crawlability), and your most important pages should receive the most internal links. Focus on quality contextual links rather than quantity.
Related terms
Automate your Shopify SEO
Understanding Internal Links is step one. Sauron handles the implementation — automatically, for your entire Shopify store.