What could be easier than a wordpress automatic internal links plugin? Load one of these related post plugins on your site and ta-da, your internal linking is done for you.
Sounds a bit too good to be true doesn’t it? That’ because it is. I don’t use related posts plugins on my site anymore and I will tell you why.
First off, it’s not natural. Pop this related post plugin on a already well established site and Whamo, you have a ton of internal linking created in seconds.
Search engines don’t favor unnatural link strategies.
If you must use this plugin, I hope you used it when your website was still young and small
How Related Post Plugins Can Hurt Seo
It doesn’t always serve up tightly relevant posts
I have been on many sites and when I get to the bottom of the post where this plug in links related posts, often the posts are not relevant to the post I am on.
If you want to keep people on your site, give them more information on the topic that they searched to get there.
This WordPress plugin links according to your categories and tags. You can adjust this in the settings of the plugin. If you set it to tags for example and your tags are not tight, the plugin can deliver some pretty irrelevant posts.
Many don’t know the correct way to use tags for seo and the results are a cluster-cluck.
In summary here, there is no guarantee that a automated plugin will serve up highly relevant results the way you could do if you did in manually.
Repetitive Anchor Text Links
Your anchor text profile should be diverse. Again, natural. The same phrase should not be used over and over again to link to a post.
Note my anchor text links above to relevant posts.
With the majority of WordPress automatic internal links plugin if it links to a post 20 different times, the title is used 20 times as the same Anchor text.
Not a good Seo practice.
Not something you would do if you were in charge of your interlinking structure I am sure.
Repetitive anchor text links is risky business and may be viewed manipulative by the search engines.
Algorithms are getting smarter everyday
Remember the Panda and Penguin animals?
Slower Site Speed
Too many plugins can bog down your site and affect it’s speed.
The less you use, the better really.
It may take me five more minutes per post to do my manual links, but it’s worth it to me.
I like having complete control in this area.
May I mention my bounce rate improved when I started doing this.
Summary of WordPress Automatic Internal Links Plugin
When you get a new visitor to your site, you want to be deliberate in keeping them them there.
This requires a personal touch. I don’t think you can rely on a plugin to do this for you.
I love a site that deliberately takes me down a rabbit hole.
It’s how I learn and gain more information for what I landed on your site to start with.
A automated plugin can’t do that as well for you as you can. I don’t leave my onsite Seo to chance.
It’s worth it to put in the extra few minutes. I value my readers and I want to give them more of what they came for and I am not going to trust a automatic internal links plugin to do that for me.
It can never duplicate me.
I have purposely and deliberately chosen my links in this post to be relevant to what you may be searching for if you landed here.
A automatic internal links plugin simply can’t do that for you.
Be deliberate in all that you do in building your blog business.
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