Internal Link Visualizer
Paste an XML sitemap or a flat list of URLs from a crawl, plus the HTML or markdown source of any pages you want analyzed. The visualizer renders a node-and-edge view of your internal link graph, highlights orphan pages (no inbound internal links), hub pages (top inbound counts), and the depth-from-homepage distribution. Useful for finding the structural issues that prevent crawl budget from reaching the pages you care about.
Why Internal Link Architecture Matters
Internal links are the single largest lever you control for distributing authority within your site. A page that is three clicks deep with two internal links to it will be crawled and ranked very differently from a page that is one click deep with twenty internal links to it. Most SEO audits surface dozens of orphan pages — pages in the sitemap that have zero internal links pointing to them, which Google interprets as low-priority. Pair this visualizer with Sitemap Generator output to confirm every page in your sitemap is reachable through the link graph.
How the Graph is Built
The visualizer parses your sitemap to enumerate the set of expected URLs, then parses each provided HTML or markdown source to extract internal links (links with the same host or relative paths). Each URL becomes a node; each link becomes a directed edge. Depth-from-homepage is computed via breadth-first search from the homepage node. Orphans are nodes with zero inbound edges; hubs are nodes with the highest inbound counts. The rendered graph uses force-directed layout, with node size proportional to inbound count and node color reflecting depth. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is fetched.
See also: once you have the site-level link graph, audit individual high-value pages with the Link Health Checker for per-link anchor and rel hygiene, and run them through the Mobile-Friendly Tester for the static mobile signals.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why cannot this tool fetch my pages for me?+
Browser-based CORS restrictions block cross-origin fetches for most sites. A proper crawl needs a server-side tool with rate-limiting and user-agent control. For the analysis here, paste HTML you already have (from a crawler export, View Source, or a static-site build output).
What counts as an orphan page?+
A URL listed in your sitemap (or expected URL list) with zero internal links pointing to it from any other analyzed page. Orphans get crawled less frequently and tend to accumulate low authority over time.
How deep is too deep?+
As a rule of thumb, important pages should be reachable within three clicks of the homepage. Pages four or more clicks deep are often crawled monthly rather than weekly, which slows ranking changes and content updates.
Can the visualizer handle a large site?+
Up to roughly 5,000 nodes renders smoothly. Above that, the layout becomes hard to read and the browser starts struggling. For larger sites, paste a subset (a single section or category) at a time.
What is the difference between inbound count and authority?+
Inbound count is the raw number of internal links. Authority (which Google computes through a PageRank-like algorithm) weights links from authoritative pages higher than links from low-authority pages. The visualizer shows count only; true authority requires server-side analysis.
Should every page have inbound links from the homepage?+
No — that would clutter the homepage. But every important page should be reachable from the homepage within three clicks, through navigation, category hubs, or contextual body links.
Does the visualizer work for markdown blogs?+
Yes — paste the markdown source and the parser will extract markdown-style links. Combine with a sitemap to map markdown content into the broader site graph.
How is this different from a paid SEO crawler?+
Paid crawlers (Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, etc.) fetch your site live and produce continuously updated reports. This tool is a free, in-browser snapshot tool — useful for one-off audits and confirming specific structural issues before paying for a crawler subscription.
Built by Derek Giordano · Part of Ultimate Design Tools
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