Published September 7, 2026.
New articles often link outward but receive no meaningful path from the existing site. A five-page sweep keeps the repair deliberate.
Build a small candidate set
Search the site for the new article's core problem and adjacent concepts. Select up to five established pages whose readers would reasonably benefit from the new answer. Favor pages with a clear sentence-level connection over high-traffic pages with weak relevance.
Edit for continuity
Add the link where it completes a thought or offers a sensible next step. Use descriptive anchors that fit the sentence. Avoid forcing an exact-match phrase or placing the same link in every candidate.
Verify the release
Request each edited source and the destination in production. Confirm successful responses, self-canonical destinations, and readable placement on desktop and mobile. Record which candidates were rejected and why; restraint is part of the quality signal.
If two pages compete for the same intent, escalate to the content owner instead of linking them together as a substitute for resolving overlap.