do backlinks to my internal pages still positively affect my homepage?

[kads]

if I get backlinks to my site on an internal page xyz.com/A.html will this still positively affect my most important page, the homepage index.html?

Second, does this affect happen directly because of the backlink to xyz.com/A.html or only because A.html will have an internal link to the homepage?

I dont see this answered anywhere which is why I ask. Obviously I know that diversifying the backlinks to non-homepage URL's can help boost the overall site, but I want to know if there is "specific" benefit for the homepage as well.

Does anybody have any evidence to help here?

Thanks in advance

[theentry]

Cross-linking your own site is OK just don't overdo it. However with external backlinks you will gain a lot more.
And I have no evidence for that, as for many things in SEO. It's all done by trial and error.

[Robert Charlton]

You should have nav links back to home, as well as both up and down in your nav structure, and to other related pages on your site as would be helpful to a user. Too many nav links are not helpful... they are confusing. As theentry says, don't overdo the internal linking, particularly don't overdo contextual linking, which is the recent flavor of the month... but also make sure that you do have enough navigation to emphasize important pages, both for the user and for Google. Again, don't overdo it.

Second, does this affect happen directly because of the backlink to xyz.com/A.html or only because A.html will have an internal link to the homepage?

The question as phrased isn't quite clear, so this answer may not be to what you're asking... The home page is boosted by external links going to deeper pages only if the deeper pages link back to home. Google is not psychic, though it's trying to be. We're beginning to see some factors that are assumed to affect an entire domain, but link juice needs "pipes" to flow through, and internally that means site navigation.

[kads]

excellent answers people

for cross-linking, what would regarded as safe?

basically, on my homepage I have only about 8 links:

T & C
Privacy Policy
Full Disclaimer
FAQ
Articles
Site Map
Testimonials
Link to an article

the site map has about 12 links, to other pages on the site
the article page has about 90 links to articles, and more links to deeper articles.

Each page at minimum has a link to:

T & C
Privacy Policy
FAQ
Site Map
Home

Is this basic link structure okay? or does having a link to the T&C, privacy policy on every page a bit excessive? what do you think?

thanks in advance

[Robert Charlton]

Is this basic link structure okay? or does having a link to the T&C, privacy policy on every page a bit excessive? what do you think?

No, it's not a good structure. If you think about it, you've buried the material you want to be found and given all the unimportant pages a lot of links from home.

Most of your inbound links, unless you have a very unusual site, will come into your home page. So you need to think about your structure initially in terms of a top-down navigation structure from your home page.

You need to categorize the material you want people to find, and then link to your main categories and most important pages from home... then, depending on how large your site is, link to your main subcategories from your category pages, etc etc.

It's wise not to overdo the links from home, which many site designers do... but you've done just the opposite. Right now you've funneled all your articles through one articles link, constricting how much link juice can get to that page, and then linked to too many articles from one page.

If your articles are, say, 80% of the value of your site, then 80% of the links on your home page should feed into a categorized link structure that links to your articles. To oversimplify, what internal linking needs to do is to transmit link juice from external inbounds to other pages. You can't just cross-link a lot of pages and assume they'll rank.

Cross-linking works much better on a site like Wikipedia, where people link primarily to the articles. I'll bet that isn't what happens on your site, but I could be wrong.

In any event, 90 links from an article page is wa-a-ay over the top... probably even for Wikipedia.

[Planet13]

In any event, 90 links from an article page is wa-a-ay over the top... probably even for Wikipedia.

Is there any sort of rule of thumb for this? Say, if an article page has one inbound link, then you should have no more than X amount of contextual links to other pages?

[kads]

hi, thanks for the analysis robert...I did think 90 links on one page was a bit excessive. I did read on Google Webmaster resources though that so long as you're under 100 links per page, you should be okay, so that probably answers youe question Planet.

in any case, its a bit near the edge so will need sorting.

Thanks for the up about the homepage - I guess I could probably add another 4-5 category links to "article categories" but still have a general article page as well - with less articles and better signposting for the categories.

[Robert Charlton]

Is there any sort of rule of thumb for this? Say, if an article page has one inbound link, then you should have no more than X amount of contextual links to other pages?

My approach is that less is more. I'd rather have a few genuinely relevant links that are actually useful to the user than a great many opportunistic links that are there just for desired SEO benefits.