Overview
A two-sided marketplace lifted the visibility of buried listings and hubs by re-engineering its internal link architecture.
Business context
A two-sided online marketplace connecting buyers and providers across many categories, with a fast-growing but loosely structured page inventory. Valuable category and provider hubs were buried deep in the site, and a large tail of listings received no internal links at all.
Starting metrics
- Orphan pages with no internal links
- a large tail across the inventory
- Click depth to priority hubs
- too deep for consistent discovery
- Internal link distribution to key categories
- uneven and largely accidental
- Broken internal links
- accumulating as the site grew
Problems identified
- Poor internal linking pattern: authority pooled on the homepage and failed to reach priority hubs.
- Orphan pages pattern across a large share of listings that had no internal links.
- Broken internal links accumulating as categories were added and retired.
- Priority category hubs sat too deep to be reliably crawled and ranked.
Actions taken
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1
Mapped the current link graph
Used the Internal Link Architecture Framework to visualise where authority pooled and where it failed to reach priority pages.
-
2
Designed a deliberate hub structure
Established clear category and provider hubs, and connected the long tail of listings into them by relevance.
-
3
Reduced click depth to priorities
Added contextual and navigational links so priority hubs moved closer to the surface.
-
4
Cleared broken and orphan links
Fixed broken internal links and connected orphan listings so no valuable page was stranded.
-
5
Set link governance for growth
Introduced templated linking rules so new listings and categories enter the architecture correctly by default.
Results
- Orphan pages
- reduced substantially as the long tail was connected (illustrative)
- Click depth to priority hubs
- materially reduced
- Organic visibility of category and provider hubs
- directionally higher over the period
- Broken internal links
- cleared and kept low through governance
Timeline: roughly 3 months
Lessons learned
- On large marketplaces, internal linking is architecture, not decoration; it decides which pages can rank at all.
- Orphan pages are lost inventory; connecting the long tail often unlocks quiet, compounding value.
- Templated linking rules keep a fast-growing site healthy without constant manual clean-up.