Links

Links

The Links tab contains data and filters around common issues related to links found in the crawl, such as pages with a high crawl-depth, pages without any internal outlinks, pages using nofollow on internal links and more.

Columns

This tab includes the following columns.

• Address – The URL address.
• Indexability – Whether the URL is Indexable or Non-Indexable.
• Indexability Status – The reason why a URL is Non-Indexable. For example, if it’s canonicalised to another URL.
• Crawl Depth – Depth of the page from the start page (number of ‘clicks’ away from the start page). Please note, redirects are counted as a level currently in our page depth calculations.
• Link Score – A metric between 0-100, which calculates the relative value of a page based upon its internal links similar to Google’s own PageRank. For this column to populate, ‘crawl analysis‘ is required.
• Unique Inlinks – Number of ‘unique’ internal inlinks to the URL. ‘Internal inlinks’ are links in anchor elements pointing to a given URL from the same subdomain that is being crawled. For example, if ‘page A’ links to ‘page B’ 3 times, this would be counted as 3 inlinks and 1 unique inlink to ‘page B’.
• Unique JS Inlinks – Number of ‘unique’ internal inlinks to the URL that are only in the rendered HTML after JavaScript execution. ‘Internal inlinks’ are links in anchor elements pointing to a given URL from the same subdomain that is being crawled. For example, if ‘page A’ links to ‘page B’ 3 times, this would be counted as 3 inlinks and 1 unique inlink to ‘page B’.
• % of Total – Percentage of unique internal inlinks (200 response HTML pages) to the URL. ‘Internal inlinks’ are links in anchor elements pointing to a given URI from the same subdomain that is being crawled.
• Outlinks – Number of internal outlinks from the URL. ‘Internal outlinks’ are links in anchor elements from a given URL to other URLs on the same subdomain that is being crawled.
• Unique Outlinks – Number of unique internal outlinks from the URL. ‘Internal outlinks’ are links in anchor elements from a given URL to other URLs on the same subdomain that is being crawled. For example, if ‘page A’ links to ‘page B’ on the same subdomain 3 times, this would be counted as 3 outlinks and 1 unique outlink to ‘page B’.
• Unique JS Outlinks – Number of unique internal outlinks from the URL that are only in the rendered HTML after JavaScript execution. ‘Internal outlinks’ are links in anchor elements from a given URL to other URLs on the same subdomain that is being crawled. For example, if ‘page A’ links to ‘page B’ on the same subdomain 3 times, this would be counted as 3 outlinks and 1 unique outlink to ‘page B’.
• External Outlinks – Number of external outlinks from the URL. ‘External outlinks’ are links in anchor elements from a given URL to another subdomain.
• Unique External Outlinks – Number of unique external outlinks from the URL. ‘External outlinks’ are links in anchor elements from a given URL to another subdomain. For example, if ‘page A’ links to ‘page B’ on a different subdomain 3 times, this would be counted as 3 external outlinks and 1 unique external outlink to ‘page B’.
• Unique External JS Outlinks – Number of unique external outlinks from the URL that are only in the rendered HTML after JavaScript execution. ‘External outlinks’ are links in anchor elements from a given URL to another subdomain. For example, if ‘page A’ links to ‘page B’ on a different subdomain 3 times, this would be counted as 3 external outlinks and 1 unique external outlink to ‘page B’.

Filters

This tab includes the following filters.

• Pages With High Crawl Depth – Pages that have a high crawl depth from the start page of the crawl based upon the ‘Crawl Depth’ preferences under ‘Config > Spider > Preferences’. Broadly, pages that are linked directly from popular pages, such as the homepage, are passed more PageRank which can help them perform better organically. Pages much deeper in the website can often be passed less PageRank, and subsequently may not perform as well. This is important for key pages that are targeting broader more competitive queries, which may benefit from improved linking and reduced crawl depth. Unimportant pages, pages that target less competitive queries, or pages on large websites will often naturally sit deeper without issue. Most importantly, consider the user, which pages are important for them to navigate to, and their journey to reach the page.
• Pages Without Internal Outlinks – Pages that do not contain links to other internal pages. This can mean there are no links to other pages. However, it is also often due to the use of JavaScript, where links are not present in the raw HTML and are only in the rendered HTML after JavaScript has been processed. Enable JavaScript rendering mode (‘Config > Spider > Rendering’) to crawl pages with links that are only client-side in the rendered HTML. If there are no links that use an anchor tag with an href attribute to other internal pages, the search engines and the SEO Spider will have trouble discovering and indexing them.
• Internal Nofollow Outlinks – Pages that use rel=”nofollow” on internal outlinks. Links with nofollow link attributes will generally not be followed by search engines. Remember that the linked pages may be found through other means, such as other followed links, or XML Sitemaps etc. Nofollow outlinks can be seen in the ‘Outlinks’ tab with the ‘All Link Types’ filter set to ‘Hyperlinks’, where the ‘Follow’ column is ‘False’. Export in bulk via ‘Bulk Export > Links > Internal Nofollow Outlinks’.
• Internal Outlinks With No Anchor Text – Pages that have internal links without anchor text or images that are hyperlinked without alt text. Anchor text is the visible text and words used in hyperlinks that provide users and search engines context about the content of the target page. Internal outlinks without anchor text can be seen in the ‘Outlinks’ tab, with the ‘All Link Types’ filter set to ‘Hyperlinks’, where the ‘Anchor Text’ column is blank, or if an image, the ‘Alt Text’ column is also blank. Export in bulk via ‘Bulk Export > Links > Internal Outlinks With No Anchor Text’.
• Non-Descriptive Anchor Text In Internal Outlinks – Pages that have internal outlinks with anchor text that is not descriptive, such as ‘click here’ or ‘learn more’ based upon the preferences under ‘Config > Spider > Preferences’. Anchor text is the visible text and words used in hyperlinks that provide users and search engines context about the content of the target page. Internal outlinks with non-descriptive anchor text can be seen in the ‘Outlinks’ tab, with the ‘All Link Types’ filter set to ‘Hyperlinks’, where the ‘Anchor Text’ column has words such as ‘click here’, or ‘learn more’. Export in bulk via ‘Bulk Export > Links > Non-Descriptive Anchor Text In Internal Outlinks’.
• Pages With High External Outlinks – Pages that have a high number of followed external outlinks on them based upon the ‘High External Outlinks’ preferences under ‘Config > Spider > Preferences’. External outlinks are hyperlinks to another subdomain or domain (depending on your configuration). This might be completely valid, such as linking to another part of the same root domain, or linking to other useful websites. External followed outlinks can be seen in the ‘Outlinks’ tab, with the ‘All Link Types’ filter set to ‘Hyperlinks’ where the ‘Follow’ column is ‘True’.
• Pages With High Internal Outlinks – Pages that have a high number of followed internal outlinks on them based upon the ‘High Internal Outlinks’ preferences under ‘Config > Spider > Preferences’. Internal outlinks are hyperlinks to the same subdomain or domain (depending on your configuration). Links are used by users to navigate a website, while the search engines use them to discover and rank pages. Too many links can reduce usability, and reduce the amount of PageRank distributed to each page. Internal followed outlinks can be seen in the ‘Outlinks’ tab, with the ‘All Link Types’ filter set to ‘Hyperlinks’ where the ‘Follow’ column is ‘True’.
• Follow & Nofollow Internal Inlinks To Page – Pages that have both rel=”nofollow” and follow links to them from other pages. Links marked with nofollow link attributes will generally not be followed by search engines. Links without a nofollow link attribute will generally be followed. So inconsistent use of links that are follow and nofollow might be a sign of an issue or mistake, or something that can be ignored. Nofollow and follow inlinks can be seen in the ‘Inlinks’ tab with the ‘All Link Types’ filter set to ‘Hyperlinks’, where the ‘Follow’ column is ‘True’ and ‘False’. Export in bulk via ‘Bulk Export > Links > Follow & Nofollow Internal Inlinks To Page’.
• Internal Nofollow Inlinks Only – Pages that only have rel=”nofollow” links to them from other pages. Links marked with nofollow link attributes will generally not be followed by search engines, so this can impact discovery and indexing of a page. Nofollow inlinks can be seen in the ‘Inlinks’ tab with the ‘All Link Types’ filter set to ‘Hyperlinks’, where the ‘Follow’ column is ‘True’ and ‘False’. Export in bulk via ‘Bulk Export > Links > Internal Nofollow Inlinks Only’.
• Outlinks To Localhost – Pages that contain links that reference localhost or the 127.0.0.1 loopback address. Localhost is the address of the local computer, which is used in development to view a site in a browser without being connected to the internet. These links will not work for users on a live website. These links can be seen in the ‘Outlinks’ tab, where the ‘To’ address contains ‘localhost’ or the 127.0.0.1 loopback address. Export in bulk via ‘Bulk Export > Links > Outlinks To Localhost’.
• Non-Indexable Page Inlinks Only – Indexable pages that are only linked-to from pages that are non-indexable, which includes noindex, canonicalised or robots.txt disallowed pages. Pages with noindex and links from them will initially be crawled, but noindex pages will be removed from the index and be crawled less over time. Links from these pages may also be crawled less and it has been debated by Googlers whether links will continue to be counted at all. Links from canonicalised pages can be crawled initially, but PageRank may not flow as expected if indexing and link signals are passed to another page as indicated in the canonical. This may impact discovery and ranking. Robots.txt pages can’t be crawled, so links from these pages will not be seen.