There are two reasons for internal links: reference and pageviews. Reference is a great reason for internal linking: new readers appreciate the fact that, when faced with shorthand descriptions like “it’s a better version of Wallop“, they can click the link to see what “Wallop” is referring to. Certainly as a new blogger a few years ago, I found this to be a useful way to build on top of my existing knowledge and essentially map out my brain through links. But then blogging went commercial and bloggers saw a pleasant side-effect of internal linking: increased pageviews. This “brain map” generates more pageviews than outbound linking, and thus our competitors followed suit. In fact, the only way to gain a competitive advantage was to do it even more than us; so you end up with a situation where some blogs begin to make 47% of their links internal, and frequently the only link in the post is to an internal page, not to the site being discussed.
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Bobwilliams
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