What internal links are and why you might want to find them
An internal link is a clickable link that points from one page on a website to another page on the same website. When you click a link in a navigation menu, or when an article links to another article on the same site, you are following an internal link. External links point to different websites entirely.
You might want to find internal links to understand how a website is organized, to see what topics a site covers, or to trace how pages connect to each other. If you are building your own website, you may want to check whether your pages link to each other the way you intended. If you are researching a topic, internal links can lead you to related information on the same site.
Key Takeaways
- Internal links appear as underlined text or buttons within a webpage and take you to other pages on the same domain.
- You can find internal links by reading the page itself, checking the navigation menu, and scrolling through the footer where many sites group related pages.
- Browser developer tools let you see all links on a page at once, including which ones are internal and which point elsewhere.
- Right-clicking a link and selecting "Inspect" shows you the actual code behind the link, including the destination address.
- For a complete map of a website's internal structure, you can use free online tools that crawl a site and show every internal link it contains.
Finding internal links by reading the page
The simplest way to find internal links is to look at the webpage itself. Internal links usually appear as underlined text in a different color — often blue — or as buttons. Hover your mouse over any link and look at the bottom left corner of your browser window. The destination address will appear there. If the address starts with the same domain name as the page you are on, it is an internal link.
For example, if you are reading an article on example.com and you see a link that says "Learn more about budgeting," hover over it. If the address bar shows example.com/budgeting, that is an internal link. If it shows othersite.com or any different domain, it is external.
Navigation menus at the top or side of a page are almost always internal links. So are links in the footer — the section at the very bottom of the page. Many websites group their main topics and related pages in the footer, making it straightforward to spot the site's structure.
Using your browser's developer tools to see all links at once
If you want to see every link on a page without clicking through them one by one, use your browser's built-in developer tools. In Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge, right-click anywhere on the page and select "Inspect" or "Inspect Element." A panel will open showing the code behind the page.
Press Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F on Mac) to open the search box within the developer tools. Type <a href — this is the code that creates a link. The browser will highlight every link on the page and show you how many there are. You can then scroll through each one and look at the destination address in the code.
This method shows you the raw link addresses, which makes it straightforward to tell internal from external links. Internal links will show the same domain name repeatedly. External links will show different domain names. You can also see links that are hidden from view or styled in ways that do not look like traditional links.
Right-clicking to inspect individual links
If you want to examine a single link more closely, right-click directly on it and select "Inspect" or "Inspect Element." The developer tools will open and highlight the code for that specific link. Look for the text that says href=" followed by an address. That address is where the link goes.
This method is useful when you are not sure whether a link is internal or external, or when you want to see what the link is called in the code versus what text is displayed on the page. You can also see if the link has any special properties, like whether it opens in a new tab or has a title that appears when you hover over it.
Using online tools to map all internal links on a website
If you want to see the complete structure of a website and how all its pages connect, use a free online link crawler tool. Tools like Screaming Frog SEO Spider (which has a free version), Ahrefs Backlink Checker, or Sitemap generators can scan an entire website and show you every internal link it contains.
To use these tools, enter the website's main address and let the tool scan it. The tool will visit every page it can reach and create a map showing which pages link to which other pages. This gives you a bird's-eye view of the site's organization. You can see which pages are linked to most often, which pages are orphaned with no internal links pointing to them, and how deep the site's structure goes.
Most free versions have limits — they might scan only the first 500 pages or require you to wait between scans — but they are enough to understand how a typical website is organized. This approach is most useful if you are studying a large website or trying to understand the full scope of a topic covered across many pages.
Understanding what internal links tell you about a website
Once you have found the internal links on a site, you can learn things about how the site is organized. Pages that are linked to frequently are usually important to the site's purpose. Pages with no internal links pointing to them are harder for visitors to find. The pattern of links shows you what topics the site groups together and what the site considers related.
If you are trying to find all the information a website has on a particular topic, following internal links is often faster than using the site's search function. The site's own links show you what the authors think is related, which is usually more useful than a search algorithm's guess.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if a link is internal or external without hovering?
Look at the domain name in the link's destination. If it matches the domain of the page you are on, it is internal. For example, on example.com, a link to example.com/about is internal, but a link to other.com is external. You can also check the address bar at the bottom of your browser when you hover over the link.
Can I see internal links if a website uses a lot of JavaScript?
Yes, but some links created with JavaScript may not show up in a straightforward link crawler. Using your browser's developer tools and searching for <a href will catch most of them. If a tool does not find a link you can see on the page, the link may be created by JavaScript code rather than traditional HTML.
Why would a website hide internal links?
Some websites intentionally do not link to certain pages from the main navigation because they want visitors to find them through search or direct links only. Other pages might be in the footer or in a secondary menu. Using developer tools or a crawler tool will find these hidden links even if they are not visible in the main navigation.
Do internal links affect how search engines rank a website?
Search engines use internal links to understand a website's structure and to decide which pages are important. Pages linked to more often are usually ranked higher. However, this is a technical detail about how search engines work, not something you need to understand to find internal links on a page.
What is the difference between a link and an internal link?
A link is any clickable element that takes you somewhere. An internal link takes you to another page on the same website. An external link takes you to a different website. Most pages have both types of links mixed together.