Cracking the Code on Refactoring Your Internal BackLinks

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Let’s be honest – using ChatGPT for internal linking isn’t as simple as dropping in a prompt and watching SEO gold appear. Lets further say, most SEO’s would rather have unnecessary root canal than dig through old content for linkage opportunities.

That said, we’ve all tried it, only to get results that are vague, repetitive, or outright unusable. There dozens of prompts floating around that try to use the LLMs to refactor internal links. Most of them produce poor output. The AI might suggest anchor text that feels robotic, recommend linking to pages that already link to the target, or completely misunderstand site structure.

Why? Because internal linking requires learned context and that is something ChatGPT doesn’t handle well by default. It needs to see the full page to understand the surrounding content and to avoid boilerplate html like footers and nav menus. That level of awareness isn’t built-in unless you prompt it carefully. Until now, most prompts haven’t gotten that right (my own failures included).

Darren Shaw, one of the most trusted names in local SEO and founder of Whitespark, shared a practical tip last month that sent me down the backlink rabbit hole. He came up with a Deep Research killer prompt that turns ChatGPT into a nice tool for internal linking.

Who Cares?

In 2002, I said (from the classic 26 Steps to 15k a Day):

G) Outbound Links:
From every page, link to one or two high ranking sites under that particular keyword. Use your keyword in the link text (this is ultra important for the future).

It took quite a few years (and significant blow back to me for saying that) for most to realize that Google uses outbound and insite cross links from a page as a metric.

Why is internal linking so important?

1. Helps Search Engines Crawl and Index Your Site
While we know that internal linking doesn’t pass near the link juice that an inbound link does, if a page isn’t linked internally, it’s much harder for bots to find and index it. Strong internal cross linking helps ensure that all your important pages are accessible and understood in context.

2. It Distributes That Link Equity Equally
When your high-authority pages link to others strategically, you’re signaling importance, which can help those linked pages rank better in search.

3. Reinforces Topical Relationships
Anchor text is so important. Linking between pages on the same subject helps build topical clusters, reinforcing your site’s authority in that area and improving relevance for ranking. I wrote about this in 2001 in the other classic “Theme Pyramids” – the basis for this post is quality internal cross linking:

4. Improves User Experience
Well-placed internal links guide visitors to related content, keeping them on the site longer and increasing engagement. This reduces bounce rates and can indirectly support SEO through better user behavior signals (EEAT Much?).

5. Supports Your Targeted Keyword Strategy
You control the anchor text with internal links. That means you can optimize the wording around specific topics or keywords, in a way that is safer and more strategic than trying to manipulate external inbound anchor text.

6. Highlights Conversion Paths – Da Funnel!
Internal Cross links can guide users toward business goals: product pages, lead magnets, doorway pages, or contact forms. This improves both SEO and UX.

In short, internal linking connects your site’s structure, authority, and user flow. Done right, it turns isolated content into a strategic network.

If you’ve ever struggled to map out internal links that actually improve SEO – and not just check a box – this method’s for you.

The Method: Turning ChatGPT into an Internal Linking Assistant

Shaw’s process is refreshingly simple but requires the right prompt and a paid ChatGPT plan with “Deep research” mode turned on. Here’s how it works:

Step-by-Step:

1. Enable “Deep research” mode in ChatGPT (available on the Pro plan).
2. Paste the prompt below and customize it with your website and a target page you want to strengthen.
3. Let ChatGPT work, and enjoy a snack while it crawls your internal content and returns real link suggestions.

The Prompt:

You are an SEO expert specializing in internal linking strategies for local business websites. Your task is to analyze the internal pages of this website: [your website link] and recommend new, contextually relevant internal links pointing to this target page:Target URL: [insert your target page url here] Instructions: – Crawl all internal pages of the website, excluding navigation, footer, and sidebar content. – Find content where it would be natural and helpful to link to the target page. – Exclude any pages that already contain an in-content link to the target URL. For each suggested internal link: 1. Identify the source page URL. 2. Suggest anchor text that feels natural and is topically relevant. 3. Provide the exact sentence where the link can be added, or suggest a new sentence that could be inserted smoothly into the existing content. 4. Provide at least 20 internal link opportunities. Output Format: Present your suggestions in a table with these columns: – Source Page URL – Anchor Text – Sentence with Link Placement – Exactly where in the text the sentence with the Link should be placed. Make sure your recommendations follow best practices for internal linking: improve user navigation, reinforce topical authority, and support SEO for the target page.

The Output

An example output (in pdf): InternalLinkStrategy-ChatGPT.pdf. That looks like this in ChatGPT:

Why This Works

Most internal linking automation tools either over-suggest or rely on keyword matching with little sense of context. Shaw’s approach, on the other hand, turns ChatGPT into a crawling assistant that reads like a human and suggests only links that actually help.

For local SEO, where topical authority and user experience are tightly tied to conversion, these suggestions can drive real lift.

Takeaways for SEOs

• Local businesses: This can be run monthly as part of your content maintenance routine.
• Agencies: Train your staff to use this prompt for client audits.
• In-house SEOs: Use this for internal pages targeting specific services or locations.

Final Word

Shaw just gave SEOs a way to scale context-rich internal linking using AI without sacrificing quality. It’s a small change, but in local SEO, small changes compound. Bookmark this one.