What is the best practice for internal linking?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Sanjay Upadhyay: What is the best practice while internal linking ?
  
  * should we use rel=nofollow ?
   ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;OR ;
   ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ; * Go with do follow .
  
  And what is the average number of achor text we use. ;
  
  Generic keyword
  Naked url ;
  Brand keyowrd
  Exact Mach Keyword
• 
  Jim Munro: I think it's generally accepted that you should never nofollow internal links, Sanjay. I am not an expert but I think you should place anchor text wherever and as often as it is relevant and useful without confining yourself to any set number or design.
• 
  Tim Capper: Do not use "nofollow" >> why, whom ever came up with that idea should be shot.
  
  Why, average number of anchor text ?
  
  If it would be natural to link from one page to another within the body of copy then link.
  
  If you start adding links from non related copy to another unrelated page with optomised anchor text, then you will run into problems.
  
  one day the pink fluffy elephant was walking in the park looking at the lovely butterflies See out Dyson Vacuum Cleaner
  
  This makes no logical sense.
  
  Link when it makes sense, to the reader and you can't go wrong ;
• 
  Ryan Cramer: +Sanjay Upadhyay ;How many links do you have on an average page? How many of those links are getting clicks(see on-page analytics)?
• 
  Sanjay Upadhyay: Thanks will check +Ryan Cramer​
• 
  Sanjay Upadhyay: More then 100 links on each page. And not all links getting clicks . Now what should i do +Ryan Cramer ;
• 
  Jim Munro: I would run the site through http://www.crazyegg.com/ and ;http://peek.usertesting.com/ and see what is being ignored. Pare it down because a useless link still consumes its share of PR.
• 
  Carl Harvey: I like "peek" - found it very useful, cheers Jim for that
• 
  Ryan Cramer: Obviously, you want to do what you can with your design to get your links under 50 per page, however, when you have a very large website, considering the 3-click rule for navigation design, that may not be so user friendly. If you are having problems with designing a user friendly navigation, then crazyegg and usertesting should help.
  As +Jim Munro ;pointed out, paring it down will improve the share of PR going to each of the links, so after doing what you can to reduce the links per page, then you will want to start strategically doing "nofollow".
  First look at your duplicate links.  ;For instance, if you have an "About Us" link in the header AND footer, see which one is not getting clicks and add the "nofollow", this will lower your overall active link count without loosing user functionality.
  Next, if you have javascript or image hrefs, add the nofollow to them as well.  ;Websites with galleries often provide popups with little value that are soaking up the link juice.
  The more complex strategy for adding nofollows is for your category/subcategory links that may be found in your hero navigation, footer and breadcrumbs.  ;Understanding how a user navigates through your website will allow you to assess which links to "nofollow".
  I had a travel website with well over 100 specific destinations. Although designed for usability, not all of the destinations were popular (and a majority were never clicked on for months).  ;The previous web developer insisted that a long-tail was the only option for this website.  ;After adding a nofollow strategy, search engine placement for the more competitive and more popular destinations increased dramatically. ;
• 
  Jim Munro: It's Christmas and not only am I not an expert but I also have to admit to not testing +Ryan Cramer ;'s method while disagreeing. I think any form of sculpting is bound to end in tears.
  
  I've done many things over the years and while most of them have lead to an immediate bounce, mostly they have also led to other issues like sometimes sending googlebot into spastic mode with magnified negative effects on larger sites.
  
  Nofollowing a link does not preserve PageRank. The presence of a link, followed or nofollowed, still spends PR. All that adding a nofollow does is block googlebot's traversal of your site via that particular link.
• 
  Edwin Jonk: From the expert panel in this week's SEO Questions hangout on air on 00:37:52 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/what_is_the_best_practice_for_internal_linking +Sanjay Upadhyay
  
  If our assistance with this issue was useful to you, please consider sharing your success story so that others might benefit.
   ; ;