I know that internal linking is important, but was wondering if it is possible to have too many internal links. I have a relatively small site. What are your thoughts on this?
I would definetly say no. Add as many links as you want to internal or homepages. Just be carefull on how fast you add if the site is new.
I'd have to agree with Aaron on that one. I cant think of a good reason why a search engine would penalize a site for linking to themselves. That being said, it is important to use strategy for your internal links. The more internal links a page has the more relative value is has over other pages of your site.
while internal linking try to use all variations of the keywords instead of using the same keyword all the time so as to appear intentional or un-naural.
No no & no. Don't over do anything. It will hurt you later! Adding too many links to a particular page is also not a good practice in my view. I would only recommend limit the number of links to 20-30 per page.
Think about your visitors. If you put too many internal links, that's bad usability. A few links to your related/top content is good for your visitors. Search engine algorithms are based on the premise that user satisfaction is the #1 factor. Make your users happy and search engines will reward you.
I dont understand what you mean. The only time too many links will hurt you is if you do it too fast on a brand new site. Do you think big sites that have 1000,s of links to internal pages get hurt? Just curious why you said this. You have no control over who links to you therefor you wont be penalized/hurt at all for any links. Some may disagree with that but I strongly agree thats true.
I agree. Look at wikipedia. Every instance of every word that they have an article on is linked (relevant or not) - massive internal linking. I think its the primary reason it ranks so high for tons of keywords - good internal linking. I do not believe you can overdo it, personally.
keep in mind, though, that wikipedia is designed for the user, not spiders. there's a big difference between wikipedia's internal linking structure (good) and listing a few hundred links at the bottom of your site you want indexed (this would be bad). it's cliche, but if it's useful for the users, chances are the search engines will like it-- that's what they're designed to do.