Internal Linking Audit
Documentation

Learn how the internal linking auditor discovers orphan pages and helps you build a stronger site architecture for SEO.

Overview

The Internal Linking Audit tool crawls your website's sitemap, visits every page, and maps all internal links. It identifies orphan pages (pages with zero inbound links) that search engines struggle to find, and calculates a connectivity score based on your linking structure.

Sitemap-Based

Reads your sitemap.xml as the source of truth

Full Crawl

Visits every page to count inbound links

No AI Guesses

Pure crawl data, mathematically calculated

How It Works

1

Sitemap Discovery

The tool fetches your /sitemap.xml to build a complete list of pages on your site. This is the "universe" of pages to audit.

2

Link Extraction

Each page is visited and all internal <a href> links are collected. Only links pointing to the same domain are counted.

3

Orphan Detection

If a page exists in the sitemap but has 0 inbound links from other pages, it is flagged as an orphan.

4

Score Calculation

Score = ((Total Pages - Orphan Pages) / Total Pages) × 100. A score of 100 means every page is linked from at least one other page.

Key Concepts

Linked Pages

Pages that have at least one internal link pointing to them from another page on your site. These pages are discoverable by search engine crawlers.

Orphan Pages

Pages that exist in your sitemap but have zero internal links pointing to them. Search engines may never discover these pages through crawling.

Connectivity Score

A percentage from 0 to 100 that represents how well your pages are interconnected. Higher scores mean fewer orphan pages and better crawlability.

How to Use

1

Enter Your Website URL

Paste your full website URL including https:// into the input field. Example: https://yourwebsite.com

2

Start the Audit

Click "Start Audit" and wait while the tool crawls your sitemap and extracts internal links from every page.

3

Review Your Score

Check your Internal Link Score. A score above 80 is good, 50-80 needs improvement, and below 50 requires urgent attention.

4

Fix Orphan Pages

Review the Orphan Pages list and add internal links from relevant pages to connect them to your site architecture.

5

Re-Audit

After making changes, run the audit again to verify your improvements and track your progress.

Requirements

  • Valid sitemap.xml — Your website must have a /sitemap.xml file listing all pages
  • Publicly accessible — Pages must be reachable without authentication
  • Standard HTML links — The tool detects standard <a href> links; JavaScript-rendered links may not be detected