Review an internal-link suggestion before it becomes a task

An internal-link suggestion is useful only when you can explain why a reader should follow it.

Here is a small example you can reproduce with a spreadsheet. Three pages are enough to expose a common mistake: treating topic similarity as permission to add a link anywhere.

Start with an inventory, not a list of keywords

Use three fictional pages:

Page	Topic	Already links to
/design/ — Website design	Web design	/cost/
/cost/ — Website project cost	Web design	Nothing
/privacy/ — Privacy policy	Legal	Nothing

The design page explains a website project. The cost page discusses planning its budget. The privacy page explains personal data.

There is already a design → cost link. That does not mean the reverse connection exists. It also does not mean every page mentioning a website belongs in the same linking plan.

Review one possible connection

A useful candidate is:

Source: /cost/
Destination: /design/
Anchor: website design
Placement: the paragraph explaining which design work the budget includes

The shared subject gives us a reason to inspect the candidate. The paragraph supplies the reason to add it: a reader comparing costs may need to understand the work included.

Before accepting it, ask:

1. Does the destination answer the question raised by this paragraph?
2. Would the sentence still read naturally without the link?
3. Does the anchor describe the destination?
4. Is the connection already present in the actual page?

Do not add a privacy → design link just to make the inventory more connected. Legal text is not automatically a useful route into a service explanation.

Write an actionable task

“Add more internal links” leaves the implementation to someone else's guesswork. Save the source, destination, anchor and placement note together:

source,target,anchor,status,note
/cost/,/design/,website design,planned,Link where the paragraph explains the design work included

This simplified CSV is a suggested handover format, not a claim that every tool imports these exact columns. Keep the status honest: planned means the link is still absent from the website.

After editing the site, follow the link on the saved frontend page and re-read its surrounding sentence. Only then mark implementation complete.

Try the worked example

I maintain the free Internal Link Planner. Its three-page example includes the input inventory and an exported one-task plan.

The planner uses page information you supply. It does not crawl your website or publish links for you. Review its match evidence, adjust the anchor and export the tasks you actually intend to implement. Browser-saved work also needs an export if you want a portable copy.

For a first run, aim for one defensible task. Can someone implement it without guessing where the link belongs?

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Disclosure: I maintain the linked tool or kit. This article was prepared with AI assistance. Practical checks are identified separately from illustrative examples; verify the result in your own project.