Fewer backlinks to internal pages seems better for Google

[Garya]

I have been comparing back-links for the top 10 sites for many hard to rank key phrases.

It looks like sites with less links or no links to their inner pages rank in the top 3 some have no links some have 5
links keywords spread around.
On the average 3 good links does it.

Home page is different just keep it under 5% for your keyword and make sure your brand name is higher %.

Also with this formula you will lose some rankings on Yahoo and Bing.

[tedster]

Interesting observation - thanks.

I'm not sure it's a universal truth, however. Sometimes an internal page is quite valuable and gains many natural backlinks. That usually helps, in my experience.

[Sand]

It's definitely possible. I've had more than a few sites where all (or close to all) links were pointing to the homepage, and interior pages ranked just fine. Domain authority is huge. That said, I wouldn't purposely try to avoid getting interior links...that's just how it worked out naturally for me.

[martinacastro]

For 2 new sites that I lunched at the end of last year Im having good positions for some competitive kws. These sites only have brand name or naked url links... and there are few links.

[gouri]

@martinacastro,

How are the internal links? In the navigation, the body text (referring to those going from one page on the site to another page on the site), and anchor links (the links that link to a particular section of a page, either from the same page or from another page)? Do all of the internal links contain some sort of keyword or keyword phrase?

[McMohan]

Home page is different just keep it under 5% for your keyword and make sure your brand name is higher %.

I would second it. For a competitive 2 word phrase I am chasing, an inner page ranks at 4 without a single external backlink nor content. Domain authority scores higher, IMO, over individual page strength in recent times. In other words, Brands.

[colonelu81]

I have blogs with no inbound links and ranking very well , some on competitive queries . Unique content > 300 words . No SEO on or off page
Romania

[muzza64]

I think the optimal combination is domain authority (lots of high quality backlinks from a wide variety of sites to the homepage) and individual page authority (2 or 3 high quality backlinks to internal pages). Anchor text doesn't seem to matter, anything will do.....site name, click here, anything.

I have a couple of competitors who have been rising strongly over the last couple of years with 95% duplicate/similar/spun content and both show these traits in their backlink profile. Every internal page ranks well due to the domain authority but the internal pages with 2 or 3 high quality backlinks rank TOP for almost every search term imaginable.

The difference between their internal pages ranking okay and ranking top seems to be the backlinks to those internal pages.

These are not brands and neither site is doing anything new/unique by the way, they are just "me too" sites. But they have both focused their marketing/PR on one specific attention grabbing product/area, created some really good content for that and made sure the rest of the site is passable. That is attracting lots of high quality backlinks. Not cheap but very effective.

[turbocharged]

I have a couple of competitors who have been rising strongly over the last couple of years with 95% duplicate/similar/spun content

I'm seeing/dealing with this as well. The real kicker is that content is the one variable that Google should be looking at closely and giving the most weight to, but instead they assign the most weight to domain authority. This is why so many scrapers are ranking stolen content at this moment. If Google were a little more aware and respectful of an author's work, maybe word for word full page rips would not be outranking the person's/company's site that originally authored it.

[n00b1]

When you speak of domain authority and high quality backlinks to the homepage... Don't good links to internal pages also transfer some domain authority, especially if you have plenty of internal pages getting good attention?

[tedster]

Don't good links to internal pages also transfer some domain authority, especially if you have plenty of internal pages getting good attention?

Yes, if those links look natural to Google. Remember that home page PR gets circulated through the whole site via your navigational links - hence the importance of a good site architecture rather than seeing a site grow like a bunch of weeds.

It takes very special content to gain natural internal backlinks and I'm sure that Google knows what kind of percentage is the statistical norm.

[martinibuster]

Site architecture plays a role in how a site is ranked because it plays a role in how the algos understand what content is important and from there the micro and macro meanings of pages, sections and the overall site.

I know of a recent example (of someone who came to me for help) where inbound link count changed so that an inner section gained more links than the home page and other sections. The home page stopped ranking for certain phrases but the one inner section picked up many more phrases. The inner section then stopped linking back to the home page section and the entire site, in the eyes of the algo, became known as being about the inner section, not the overall topic linked from the home page. Now when you search for the domain name, you get results from the inner section. This was caused by the abundance of inbound links to the inner section and was happening for awhile because of the natural inbound linking patterns. The ranking trend was pushed over the top by changes in the site architecture.

That and many other examples I have seen and experienced provide support to me for my belief that site architecture plays a role in what a site ranks for. Inbound link trends also play a role.

Given the above, I believe that if the top ten for a given niche have a particular linking pattern, such as an abundance of links to the home page, that that is a coincidence in that particular niche. It could also indicate an exploitable entry point.