Internal linking mistakes can weaken topical authority by sending mixed signals about your topic. In other words, they make it harder for search engines to tell which page is the main answer and which pages are there to support it.
Here are five of the top ones you’ll want to avoid.
1. Not Choosing a Hub Page
This is the classic “everyone’s in charge” problem. Say you’re building a content cluster around email marketing for e-commerce. You may end up with pages like:
- “Email Marketing for Shopify Stores”
- “E-commerce Email Marketing: The Complete Guide”
- “Best E-commerce Email Flows”
- “How to Write E-commerce Welcome Emails”
If you don’t choose a hub (or pillar page), you’ll usually link between the first two (and maybe even the flows post on occasion) like they’re all on the main page. Maybe your welcome email post links to the “complete guide,” but your flows post links to the Shopify one, and your Shopify page links back to flows as if that is the primary resource.
Now you’ve got multiple pages competing for the same core intent, and your internal links aren’t making it clear which one is the main answer.
Instead, try to pick one page to own the broad intent, like “Ecommerce Email Marketing: The Complete Guide” and make that the hub. Then the Shopify page, flows page, and welcome email page support it by linking into the hub in context, while still linking to each other only when there’s a real reason.
2. Over-Cross-Linking Everything
Now, using the same e-commerce email cluster example, imagine every post links to every other post: the welcome email article links to flows, the Shopify guide, abandoned cart, post-purchase, subject lines, segmentation — all in one big “related resources” pile. Then each of those pages does the same thing back.
It feels thorough, but there’s a problem: the hierarchy disappears. When everything links to everything, you stop signaling which page is meant to be the main destination for the cluster. Each page becomes just another stop, and none of them stand out as the one that pulls the topic together.
So, give it some direction. Most supporting links should point toward the main page, and the main page should act like the organized table of contents that points outward. Cross-links between supporting pages can still happen, sure, but only when they’re genuinely helpful and when the connection is specific — not just because “they’re in the same cluster.”
3. Orphaning Supporting Pages
Let’s say you publish a really useful page like “How to Write a Post-Purchase Email Sequence”, a perfect supporting piece. But it only lives in your blog feed, maybe it gets one link from a random “newsletter tips” post, and your main e-commerce email guide never points to it.
In cluster terms, that page is an orphan.
Orphan pages don’t do much for topical authority because they’re not clearly part of the topic system you’re building. If search engines (and readers) can’t easily reach the page through relevant internal links, it doesn’t strengthen the cluster. It’s just…kind of…floating.
You can probably guess the fix for these kinds of internal linking mistakes: make sure every supporting page is connected from at least one relevant page in the cluster, and that it links back into the cluster too. Typically, that usually means the hub page should link to it, and the supporting page should link back to the hub (and sometimes one other closely related supporting page if it genuinely fits).
4. Using Anchor Text That Is Too Vague
Sometimes you link correctly, but the anchor text just kind of throws away the signal.
You’ve seen the usual suspects: “click here,” “read more,” “this post,” “learn more,” or even a bare “here.” Even something like “check out this guide” is basically empty from a topical standpoint.
In the e-commerce email cluster, imagine a sentence like: “We use a simple framework for this — read more here.” If that link goes to your “Ecommerce Email Marketing: The Complete Guide,” nothing in the anchor helps reinforce what that destination page is about. You’re passing equity, but you’re not adding clarity.
For a stronger internal linking strategy, use anchors that sound natural while still naming the topic or intent. Something like “our ecommerce email marketing guide,” “post-purchase email sequence examples,” or “abandoned cart email flow strategy” reads like normal writing, but it also clearly labels what the linked page covers.
5. Promoting Two Pages for the Same Intent
Let’s say you have both “E-commerce Email Marketing: The Complete Guide” and “Email Marketing for Shopify Stores,” and you keep treating both like the primary destination. Some posts link to the “complete guide” as the main resource, while other posts link to the Shopify page in the same “this is the main one” way. Even worse, your hub page might link prominently to the Shopify page near the top, making it feel like an equal.
This is one of those internal linking mistakes that may sound good on paper, but it actually splits internal signals. Instead of building one clear ranking target for the broad intent, you’re feeding two URLs and making it unclear which one should be the main answer.
The key here is to make a decision and commit to it. If the intent is truly the same, merge the pages or consolidate the stronger one. And if the intents are different, separate them more clearly. You could have the “complete guide” own the broad e-commerce email intent, and the Shopify page becomes a supporting or spin-off page that targets the platform-specific angle and links back up to the main guide.
Make Fewer Internal Linking Mistakes With Clear Clusters
You may have noticed a theme in our list here: most internal linking mistakes are really cluster clarity problems. When the roles of your pages are obvious, the links naturally reinforce that structure instead of fighting it.
If you want a Topical Authority Content Plan to help you find and group untapped and related keywords into clean clusters you can build around, contact MarketingPal.io. When clusters are clear, the links basically place themselves.
