Maps internal links and anchor text between a new or updated page and an existing URL inventory to strengthen a topic cluster, producing a source/target/anchor link table plus a hub-and-spoke check. Use when someone asks "which pages should this article link to", "how do I internally link my new post", "is this page orphaned", or has a draft plus a sitemap, URL export, or pillar/cluster map and needs to decide the inbound links, outbound links, and anchors. Do NOT use to design the cluster or pillar architecture from a keyword export - use keyword-cluster-builder instead; do NOT use for on-page rewrites of titles, headings, or body copy - use seo-optimizer instead; do NOT use when a page is slipping in rankings and needs SERP-intent update actions - use content-refresh-auditor instead.
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name: Internal Linking Mapper
description: Maps internal links and anchor text between a new or updated page and an existing URL inventory to strengthen a topic cluster, producing a source/target/anchor link table plus a hub-and-spoke check. Use when someone asks "which pages should this article link to", "how do I internally link my new post", "is this page orphaned", or has a draft plus a sitemap, URL export, or pillar/cluster map and needs to decide the inbound links, outbound links, and anchors. Do NOT use to design the cluster or pillar architecture from a keyword export - use keyword-cluster-builder instead; do NOT use for on-page rewrites of titles, headings, or body copy - use seo-optimizer instead; do NOT use when a page is slipping in rankings and needs SERP-intent update actions - use content-refresh-auditor instead.
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# Internal Linking Mapper
Wire one page into an existing site so the whole topic cluster gains authority: pick the outbound links from the new page, the inbound links into it, and descriptive anchor text for each. The costly mistake this prevents is the orphan - a page with zero inbound internal links that search engines rarely crawl and never rank - and its opposite, exact-match anchor spam that reads as manipulation. This skill assumes the cluster already exists and the page content is set; it only decides the links.
## Operating procedure
Order matters: you cannot plan links until you know the inventory, and you cannot write anchors until you know the links.
### Step 1: Gather inputs
- The target page: topic, primary keyword, and draft or URL.
- The existing URL inventory: sitemap, URL export, or pillar/cluster map. If none is supplied, ask for one - never invent URLs.
- Optional but valuable: which page is the top money/conversion page, and any pages known to be thin, noindex, or non-canonical (these are link dead-ends).
If the site architecture is unknown, ask one framing question: how many clicks from the homepage is this page's section? Every important page should sit within 3 clicks of the home page; if the new page would land deeper, flag it - internal links from higher-level pages are the fix.
### Step 2: Locate the cluster
Identify the page's pillar and its sibling cluster pages by topic match. Anything outside the cluster is a candidate only when genuinely relevant to the reader.