The Links tab of Statistics shows the links between your pages and what your visitors, Google and AI robots do with them. This article teaches you how to choose a page to observe, read its figures and its three maps, then see what leads to it and what leaves it.
Before you start
- Internal linking is the set of links between your pages and the links that lead to them from other sites. It helps your visitors find your pages and helps search engines judge their importance.
- The Links tab is in the Statistics menu, between Bots and Advice. It requires the Editor or Administrator role.
- The site records the links of the pages published in Production or in Staging, depending on the environment opened by the Statistics menu. A link changed in Staging enters the Production record when the site is published.
- The tab follows the period chosen at the top of the screen. The visitor filters of the other tabs do not apply to it.
Choose the observed page
The whole tab is read around one page, the observed page: its figures, its map, what leads to it and what leaves it.
- In the Observed page field, type part of the title or the address. The pages found appear under the field, the most important ones in the mesh first.
- Click a page. The tab reloads around it.
A click on a page of the map, of a table or of the diagram makes it the observed page. The Open in the Links tab link in a page’s detail panel does the same.
See as visitors or as engines
The See as choice shows the site as the visitors or the engines and the AIs read it. Visitors follow every link. A search engine and an AI robot follow only the links written with an address. A link hidden from the engines, such as the whole card of a list, disappears from the second reading: the distances, the map and the tables are recalculated. In the visitors’ reading, this link carries the note Hidden from the engines.
Read the page figures
The figures of the observed page appear as tiles under its title and address. The i of each tile gives its definition. The Page detail button opens its statistics panel.
| Tile | Definition |
|---|---|
| Views | The pages viewed by human visitors over the period. |
| AI robots | The passages of verified AI robots on the page and on its Markdown version. |
| Google clicks, Google impressions, Google position | The Google Search Console figures for the page. Not logged in until Search Console is, Absent when Google does not show the page. |
| Bing clicks | The clicks from Bing, for the pages that Bing counts among the main ones of the site. Not logged in until Bing Webmaster Tools is. |
| Internal weight | The importance that your links give to the page, from 0 to 10. Each link passes on a share proportional to how much your visitors use it, or to the weight of its location while the page has few views. |
| Depth | The minimum number of clicks to reach the page from the home page, counting all links, header and footer included. |
| Internal links | The links that lead to the page from the content of another page or from a list. Those in the header, the footer and the templates do not count. |
| Referring domains | The sites from which visitors arrived on the page during the period. |
Read the mesh map
The Mesh map view places the observed page at the center. Around it, each ring gathers the pages that are the same number of links away from it, in either direction. The links of the contents, the lists and the templates count. The header and the footer, which link all pages, do not count in the distance. The last ring carries the External traffic: the sources of the observed page and the sites that cite the other pages drawn.
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| Internal depth | From 1 to 6 and more rings. The sixth gathers the pages six links away and more, as well as those that no link connects to the observed page. |
| Views, Google clicks, Google impressions, Bing clicks, Bing impressions, AI robots | One circular gauge per measure checked around each page. A gauge fills in proportion to the strongest page shown for the same measure. |
| Traffic on every link | Makes the dots travel on every link, not only on those of the observed page. |
| SEO / GEO traffic, Other channels | Shows on the outer ring the engines and the AIs, then direct access, campaigns, advertising, social networks and referring sites. |
The dots travel in the direction of the link. The more your visitors use it, the more dots there are. A ring shows the pages it has room to show, the most important first. The others are counted in a + N: a click lists them to the right of the map. Hovering over a page gives its figures. The legend, under the map, distinguishes the Link in the content (solid line), the Template link (dashes) and the Link of a list (dotted).
Read the groups map
The Groups map view shows one group of pages at a time. A group gathers pages that each have most of their links with the other pages of the group. The links of the content and the lists count in both directions, as well as the searches on which Google shows two pages together. The groups are calculated in the engines’ reading.
- The map shows the group of the observed page, or the largest one of the site if it has none. Its pages have its color, under a halo that carries the name of its most viewed page.
- A page that has a good share of its links with the group, without having most of them, is At the frontier. It is shown in white, surrounded by the color of the group.
- Shared Google searches draws as dotted lines the searches where Google shows two pages of the group.
- On the right, Page groups lists the groups of the site, the largest first, with their number of pages and the share of their links that stay inside. A click on a group draws it. Below appear the Pages of the group, then those on its frontier with the number of links that would bring them in.
Read the SEO / GEO map
The SEO / GEO map view places the most viewed pages of the period and the observed page. The width follows their visibility in engines, the height their visibility with AIs. The size of a page follows its views. The Metric choice switches from clicks to impressions, from Google or from Bing depending on the connected engines. Without Search Console, the map shows a link to connect it.
Read the links of a page
Under the maps, a diagram puts the observed page in the middle. The left side shows Header, footer and menus, gathered in one box, each page that links to it, then SEO / GEO traffic and Other channels. The right side shows the pages it leads to and Left the site. Each box gives its passages or its visits.
When a side has too many pages, a + N more points to the tables.
| Table | Columns |
|---|---|
| Inbound internal links | From, Link, Clicks, Share of views. |
| Outbound internal links | To, Link, Clicks, Share of views. Left the site at the bottom, above the Total. |
| Inbound external links | Source, Channel, Visits, Share of views. |
The Link column shows the words before the link, its text in bold and the words after. Below appears where it is written: Content, Template, Site header, Site footer, Mobile menu or Consent banner. A detail may follow: list, breadcrumbs or post navigation.
The Clicks are those of this very link: two buttons to the same page each have their own number. One bar per week shows their trend up to the current week. The Share of views relates to the views of the observed page: where they come from for inbound links, where they go for outbound links. Each table is read page by page, the most followed links first.