SOURCE

Where your links actually do the work

Properties1
tagsseo, local-seo, internal-linking, core-30, gbp-alignment, caleb-ulku, anchor-text
AUTHOR
Caleb Ulku
ORIGINAL
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6 min read

Where your links actually do the work

Author: Caleb Ulku | Published: unknown (clip has no date) | Source: Skool post

Summary

A short community post from Caleb Ulku’s paid Skool group that untangles a week’s worth of member questions about navigation labels and “what should link to what.” His diagnosis: people were treating two different kinds of links as one thing, and the ranking work was being asked of the wrong kind.

The first kind is navigation — the site-wide menu at the top of every page. It is structural. Its job is to let people and Google move around the site. Because it is identical on every page, it is not a statement about any single page, and stuffing “keyword plus city” into those labels reads as manipulative. He is explicit that this type of link does not pass any real SEO authority. Keep the menu clean and simple.

The second kind is in-content editorial links — a link sitting in the body, pointing at a related page, with anchor text that plainly describes the destination. Those body links are how Google understands which of your pages belong together. That is “where the actual SEO work happens.”

If the city does not go in the menu, it goes on the page itself: the title tag, the H1, and the first paragraph. That is where Google reads what a specific page is about, so that is where “service plus city” lives. His example: “Water heater repair in Houston” in the title and the H1, answered in the first line — not jammed into the menu on every page. The anchor-text rule is deliberately boring: describe where the link goes, keep it natural, do not repeat the same phrase over and over. If a person can tell what they will get when they click, the anchor is already doing it right.

The closing frame is anti-overthinking. The menu gets people around. The body links, plus the page’s own title and H1, do the ranking work. Keep those two jobs separate and most linking confusion disappears.

The post is short, but it is the cleanest standalone statement of a rule that already runs through his longer tutorials: Core 30 pages are connected by editorial links, not by keyword-stuffed nav, and GBP–Website Alignment (Consistency Signals) puts category/service + city in the title/H1 (and here, the first paragraph), not in chrome. It also matches official Google starter-guide advice on descriptive, non-stuffed anchors and on putting location in the title as a user-facing descriptor — while going further than Google does by claiming nav links pass no real authority.

Key Claims

  • A site has two kinds of links with two jobs: site-wide navigation (structural, wayfinding) vs. in-content editorial links (topical, ranking). Mixing them is the source of most internal-linking confusion. (creator-opinion)
  • Do not put “keyword plus city” in navigation. Because nav is site-wide it cannot describe a single page, and forcing keywords there reads as manipulative. (creator-opinion; aligns with official keyword-stuffing spam policy)
  • Nav links do not pass any real SEO authority. (creator-opinion — stronger than official “links help discovery”; already stated in The BEST SEO Tutorial for Businesses 2026 (Full Guide) (saved as 'The BEST Local SEO Tutorial for Beginners 2026'))
  • In-content editorial links are where SEO work happens. Body links with descriptive anchors tell Google which pages belong together. (creator-opinion)
  • “Service plus city” lives in the title tag, H1, and first paragraph of the specific page — not in the menu. Example: “Water heater repair in Houston” in title and H1, answered in the first line. (creator-opinion; operationalizes GBP–Website Alignment (Consistency Signals))
  • Anchor text: describe the destination, keep it natural, do not reuse the same phrase. If a person knows what they will get, it is correct. (creator-opinion; aligns with official “write good link text”)

Notable quotes

“Your site has two kinds of links, and they do two different jobs.”

Why citable: The whole post in one line — a practitioner frame for internal linking that is more useful than “build a pyramid” abstractions. Content-fuel and client-audit language.

“Don’t stuff ‘keyword plus city’ into it. Because it’s site-wide, it isn’t telling Google anything about any single page, and forcing keywords in there just reads as manipulative.”

Why citable: Direct instruction against a common local-SEO tactic (city+service in every nav item). Pairs with official keyword-stuffing policy and with GBP–Website Alignment (Consistency Signals) putting that phrase on the page, not in chrome.

“The menu gets people around. The body links, and the page’s own title and H1, do the ranking work.”

Why citable: Cleanest separation of wayfinding vs. ranking. Use in audits when a site has stuffed nav and thin body links.

Connections

Entities mentioned: Caleb Ulku, Google Concepts referenced: Local SEO, Core 30, GBP–Website Alignment (Consistency Signals), Technical SEO from Architecture · internal linking (NEW: internal-linking)

Contradictions / Tensions

  • “Nav links don’t pass any real SEO authority” is a strong creator claim. Official SEO Starter Guide: The Basics says links (generally) are how Google discovers pages and that good anchor text helps users and Search understand the target — it does not split nav vs. body or say nav passes zero equity. Pagepro’s Technical SEO from Architecture treats pillar-cluster internal linking (including hierarchical URLs) as distributing PageRank, without distinguishing nav from editorial. Mark nav-passes-nothing as creator-opinion, consistent with his earlier “editorial links pass authority; navigation/footer links barely do” in The BEST SEO Tutorial for Businesses 2026 (Full Guide) (saved as 'The BEST Local SEO Tutorial for Beginners 2026'). “Barely” and “don’t pass any real” are the same thesis at two intensities.
  • “Service + city” in title/H1/first paragraph corroborates GBP–Website Alignment (Consistency Signals) and is compatible with the official starter guide’s “good titles may include physical location.” It does not license keyword stuffing — the same post forbids stuffing that phrase into nav, and official policy forbids repeating it everywhere.
  • Descriptive natural anchors align with official “write good link text.” No tension there.
  • Commercial context: posted inside a paid community. The advice is consistent with his free YouTube corpus, so the paywall does not change the claim, but it is still sales-adjacent.

Notes

Seeds the missing internal-linking concept: two-job model (nav = wayfinding, body = ranking), no city+keyword in nav, service+city in title/H1/lede, descriptive unique anchors. When that page is created, aggregate this post with the editorial-vs-nav line in The BEST SEO Tutorial for Businesses 2026 (Full Guide) (saved as 'The BEST Local SEO Tutorial for Beginners 2026') and the official anchor-text guidance in SEO Starter Guide: The Basics.

NEW pages to create (not written this ingest): internal-linking (concept). Clipper published empty — status ok on content, date unknown.