An internal link audit helps to uncover broken, missing, or poorly structured links on your site. It also allows you to identify opportunities to improve your SEO, internal linking structure, and user experience.
This makes it crucial for sites that want to strengthen their authority, improve navigation, and ensure both users and search engines can easily find their content. This is how to do an internal link audit using AI Link Genius.
In this article, we’ll cover:
1 Getting Started
Here are a few things to do before you start your internal link audit.
- Enable the AI Link Genius module
- Audit the HTTP status of your internal links
You need AI Link Genius to enable the Link Genius module. Go to the AI Link Genius page to get started.
1.1 Enable the AI Link Genius Module
First of all, we need to enable the Link Genius module. To do that, click Rank Math SEO from your WordPress dashboard. Once done, next, enable the Link Genius module, as shown below.
1.2 Audit the HTTP Status of Your Internal Links
Now, head to Rank Math SEO → Link Genius, as shown below.
Here, you can audit the HTTP status of your internal links. To do that, click Crawl.
The audit filter options will appear. It contains two sets of filters: link status and link type. For the link status filter, we have three options:
- Check all links: Audit all links on your site
- Only unchecked: Only audit links that have not been previously audited
- Only errors: Only audit links that return client, server, and other errors
You will most likely want to check all your links. So, select Check all links.
For the link type filter, select Internal only since we are performing an internal link audit. Then click Start audit.
AI Link Genius will audit your links and display a success message, as shown below. It will also include the details of the audit. You will now proceed to the next steps.
- Total: Number of internal links that were audited
- Processed: Number of internal links that have been audited
- Failed: Number of internal links that could not be audited
- Progress: Indicates the status of the audit. (100% indicates that all links were successfully audited.)
You can click Close to close it.
2 Audit Your Internal Links
It is time to find internal links that are broken, redirect to other pages, or contain a nofollow tag. You will do this using the Links tab.
To get started, click Links.
Then, select the Internal filter, as shown below.
You can now proceed with the internal links audits below.
- Find broken internal links
- Find nofollow internal links
- Find redirected internal links
2.1 Find Broken Internal Links
To find broken internal links, click the Broken filter.
You will be presented with the broken internal links on your site. These links return a 4xx status code. This is often a 404 Not Found status code, but it could also be the 401 Unauthorized, 403 Forbidden, and 410 Gone status codes.
To filter the broken links by their status codes, click the HTTPS status filter and select one of the 401 (Unauthorized), 403 (Forbidden), 404 (Not Found), or 410 (Gone) status codes.
You can select multiple status codes.
After selecting your HTTP status codes, click Apply filters.
2.2 Find Nofollow Internal Links
Your internal links should not have a nofollow tag. If they do, you should remove them. To get started, click the nofollow status filter and select With nofollow.
Once done, click Apply filters.
It will show you the nofollow internal links on your site. Click × to remove the nofollow attribute in the link.
2.3 Find Redirected Internal Links
Internal links should not have redirects. Instead, you should link directly to the final webpage. To check for internal links with redirects, select the Redirects filter.
You will be presented with the internal links containing redirects. These links typically return a 3xx error, such as the 301 Moved Permanently and 302 Found.
3 Audit Your Posts for Internal Links
You can also audit the internal links pointing to your posts. This helps you analyze incoming links and identify orphan pages with no links pointing to them. You will do this using the Posts tab.
To get started, click on the Posts tab.
You can now proceed with the internal link post audits below.
- Find orphan posts
- Analyze a post’s incoming links
3.1 Find Orphan Posts
Orphan posts are posts without internal links pointing to them. To find such posts, click the Orphan posts filter, as shown below.
You will be presented with the orphan posts on your site. You will observe that their incoming links is zero and denoted with an exclamation mark !.
3.2 Analyze a Post’s Incoming Links
You can identify the specific incoming links pointing to your pages. To do that, click the With incoming links filter.
Once done, head to the incoming links column. It will show the link count (number of incoming links) pointing to each post. You click the link count for additional insights into the incoming links.
When you click on the link count, you will be presented with the details of the links, as shown below.
4 Links and Posts Tab Options and Filters
The links and posts tabs contains multiple options and filters that allow you to find the specific post, link, or data that you need. We will show you the available filter and options.
4.1 Links Tab Options and Filters
The links tab options and filters lets you customize the internal links report you accessed using the Links tab. In this case, it allows you to customize your broken, nofollow, and redirected internal link reports.
The options and filters available in the links tab include:
- Search bar
- Link status filter
- HTTP status filter
- Anchor type filter
- Nofollow status filter
- Column visibility toggle
a. Search Bar
Enter your search term into this field. It should match the post title or URL in the target URL column, as shown below. In the case of a URL, make sure to include the hyphens - where relevant. (Do not include forward slashes /).
b. Link Status Filter
This lets you filter the internal links by their status. The available options include:
- All: Lets you view all links irrespective of their status
- Success: Lets you view links that return a 2xx status code
- Broken: Lets you view links that return a 4xx or 5xx status code
- Redirects: Lets you view links that return a 3xx status code
- Marked safe: Lets you view links that you marked as safe
- Unchecked: Lets you view links that have not been checked
c. HTTP Status Filter
This lets you filter your internal links by their HTTP status code. Click on it and select the status codes to audit. You can select multiple status codes.
d. Anchor Type Filter
This lets you filter the links by their anchor. The available options include:
- All anchor types: View all links irrespective of their anchor type
- Hyperlink: View hyperlink anchors only
- Image: View image anchors only
e. Nofollow Status Filter
This lets you filter the links by their status filter. That is, whether they include a nofollow tag, or not.
- All links: Show all links regardless of their follow status
- With nofollow: Only show nofollow links
- Without nofollow: Only show follow or dofollow links
f. Column Visibility Toggle
The column visibility toggle lets you display or hide the columns in the posts tab. You can display or hide every column except source post and target URL columns.
4.2 Posts Tab Settings and Filters
The posts tab options and filters lets you customize the internal links report you accessed using the Posts tab. In this case, it allows you to customize your orphan post and posts with incoming links report.
The options and filters available in the posts tab include:
- Search bar
- Post type filter
- SEO score filter
- Column visibility toggle
a. Search Bar
The search bar lets you find specific orphan posts by their title or keyword. Enter the title or keyword into the field. It will show posts that contain those keywords.
b. Post Type Filter
The post type filter lets you find specific content by type.
The default options are posts and pages. However, it can include additional post types, such as products, depending on your site. You can select multiple post types here.
c. SEO Score Filter
The SEO score filter lets you filter your posts by their SEO score. The available options include:
- All scores: Shows all posts regardless of their SEO score
- Great: Only shows posts with an SEO score of 81 and above
- Good: Only shows posts with an SEO score between 51 and 80
- Bad: Only shows posts with an SEO score below 50
- Not set: Only shows posts without an SEO score
d. Column Visibility Toggle
The column visibility toggle lets you display or hide the columns in the posts tab. You can display or hide every column except the post title column.
That is how to do an internal link audit using AI Link Genius. If you have any questions, you’re always more than welcome to contact our dedicated support team, who are available 24/7, 365 days a year.