SEO finding
Internal links say a page matters, its directives say it does not
SEO Warning Severity: Medium
Part of the audit Internal links contradict the indexing directives. Finding id: seo.linksContradictDirectives.
What it costs you
Links tell search engines a page is worth visiting. A noindex, nofollow, block or redirect on the same page throws that away, and a page you rely on can drop out of search results.
What to do
Decide whether the page should be found. If yes, remove the directive. If no, stop linking to it from menus and body text, or link straight to the URL that replaces it.
What it checks
- Menu links to a page hidden from search
- Sitemap pages linked with ignore-this-link tag
- Many links point to redirected addresses
- Important page only linked with ignored links
- Linked page is blocked in the robots file
How to fix it
Link straight to the final URL
- Open [url] and note where it ends up: the redirect target or the canonical it names.
- Change the internal links to that address, starting with [example source].
How to check: Recrawl the site and run this rule again.
Make links and directives say the same
- Open [url] and decide whether it should appear in search results.
- If it should: remove the noindex or the robots.txt block, and remove rel=nofollow from internal links to it.
- If it should not: take it out of the navigation and the sitemap.
How to check: Run this rule again. For pages that should be found, Search Console URL inspection reports them as indexed.
Thresholds
| Name | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
min_links | 10 | Internal links a redirected, canonicalised or blocked URL must receive before it is reported. |
How to verify by hand
Search Console clicks for the target and whether it is indexed.
What this relies on
Heavy internal linking shows the page matters, so the directive is the mistake.