Can You Hurt Your Rankings By Using Too Many Internal Links?

Aug 17, 2010 - 9:30 am 12 — by
Filed Under Link Building

A WebmasterWorld thread has one SEO/Webmaster claiming his ranking for his primary keywords died after using too many internal links in an effort to boost those keyword rankings.

In short, he noticed he was ranking semi-well for a number of keywords. To boost that ranking a bit, he decided to add a blogroll like navigation to his site and place those keywords in anchor text to the internal destination pages. He said, it backfired and now his keyword rankings for those queries have dropped.

He said:

I made an assumption that some good internal linking using the keyword in the anchor text in the same site would push the rankings up to page 1

In effect i used the "Blogroll" style links in WordPress so i had a top 10 searched area listing these 10 keyword rich links on the right column of EVERY page

Since then my traffic overall on the site has gone down. Its almost a month since this change.

Do you think over linking internally can hurt you? Take our poll:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Google Search Volatility

More Details

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

ChatGPT

ChatGPT Adds Virtually Try On Clothing & Accessories

Oct 1, 2026 - 3:32 pm
Misc Google

Google AI Overview Lawsuit Dismissed Over No Agreement With Publishers

Oct 1, 2026 - 11:31 am
Google Updates

Phase Two Of The Google September 2026 Spam Update Hits On 9/30

Oct 1, 2026 - 10:30 am
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: October 1, 2026

Oct 1, 2026 - 10:00 am
Google Ads

Google Local Service Ads Bug Serving Wrong Locations

Oct 1, 2026 - 8:00 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

October 2026 Google Webmaster Report

Oct 1, 2026 - 7:51 am
Previous Story: Google Images Serves Up One Image For Limited Time