Clean URLs & Internal Links
Short, readable URLs and helpful links between your own pages make your site easy to understand.
What you will learn
- Write a clean, keyword-friendly URL
- Explain what internal links do
- Use clear anchor text
What makes a good URL
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a page’s web address — the line that starts with the site name in the browser bar. A clean URL is short, uses real words, and hints at what the page is about. Both people and Google read it.
Good: sweetcrumbs.in/eggless-birthday-cakes
Bad: sweetcrumbs.in/p?id=8842&cat=12&ref=xyzNote: The good URL tells you exactly what the page is — eggless birthday cakes — using words and hyphens. The bad URL is full of codes that mean nothing to a person and help your SEO less.
URL rules of thumb
- Use hyphens between words, not spaces or underscores.
- Keep it short — drop filler words like the and and.
- Use lowercase letters only.
- Include the keyword when it fits naturally.
What internal links do
An internal link is a link from one page on your site to another page on the same site. They help in three ways: visitors find more pages, Google discovers and crawls your pages, and you pass importance to your key pages.
Imagine your site is a city. Internal links are the roads. A page with no roads leading to it is like a house with no street — hard for anyone, including Google, to reach.
Anchor text matters
The clickable words in a link are called the anchor text. Describe the destination clearly instead of using vague words.
| Weak anchor text | Strong anchor text |
|---|---|
| Click here | See our eggless cake menu |
| Read more | How same-day cake delivery works |
| This page | Birthday cake prices in Lucknow |
Note: Strong anchor text tells the reader and Google what the linked page is about. Vague words like click here waste a useful SEO signal.
Tip: A good habit: whenever you publish a new page, add a link to it from at least one older, related page. That helps Google find it faster and guides readers to it.
Watch out: Do not cram dozens of links into one sentence or repeat the exact same keyword anchor everywhere. Link naturally where it genuinely helps the reader.
Q. Which is the better internal link anchor text?
✍️ Practice
- Rewrite a messy URL into a clean one for a page about gym membership plans.
- Write 3 strong anchor texts to replace vague ones like “click here”.
🏠 Homework
- Map 3 pages of a small website and draw the internal links you would add between them.