Skip to main content

Internal Linking

Overview​

outwrite.ai provides two powerful SEO features that work together to optimize your content:

  • Internal Linking: AI-powered suggestions that recommend relevant pages from your own website to link within your generated content
  • Source Blacklist: Block specific competitor domains from ever being cited as sources in your content

Both features are managed in Settings → Linking and work automatically during content generation.

What It Does​

When you create content, our AI analyzes your topic and automatically suggests the most relevant pages from your website to include as internal links. This:

  • Improves your site's SEO by creating a strong internal link structure
  • Helps readers discover related content on your site
  • Signals topical authority to search engines and AI systems
  • Keeps visitors engaged longer on your site

How It Works​

  1. You add your website's sitemap URL to outwrite.ai
  2. We parse and index all the URLs and page titles from your sitemap
  3. When creating content, our AI matches your topic against your pages
  4. You get ranked suggestions with relevance scores
  5. Select which links to include in your content

Getting Started with Internal Linking​

Prerequisites​

Adding Your First Sitemap​

Step 1: Navigate to Settings

Go to Settings → Linking in the left navigation (or keyboard shortcut 5).

Step 2: Add a Sitemap Preset

You'll see the "Internal Linking" section with a form to add your sitemap:

  1. Preset Name: Give it a descriptive name (e.g., "Main Blog", "Help Center", "Product Pages")
  2. Sitemap URL: Enter your full sitemap URL (e.g., https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml)
  3. Click Add Preset

Step 3: Wait for Processing

After adding, outwrite.ai will:

  • Fetch your sitemap XML
  • Parse all URLs and page titles
  • Store them for future suggestions

You'll see status indicators:

  • 🕐 Pending: Sitemap is being fetched
  • ✅ Success: Sitemap parsed successfully
  • ❌ Error: Something went wrong (check error message)

Step 4: Verify Your URLs

Once processed, you'll see:

  • Total number of URLs found
  • Last fetched date
  • Sample URLs from your sitemap

Managing Multiple Sitemaps​

Why Use Multiple Presets?​

Different sections of your site may have different sitemaps. For example:

Actions for Each Preset​

  • Refresh (↻): Re-fetch the sitemap to get the latest URLs
  • Edit: Change the preset name or sitemap URL
  • Delete (🗑): Remove the sitemap preset

Using Internal Links When Creating Content​

Where to Find It​

When creating any content type, expand the "Internal Links" section in the form. You'll see:

  1. Sitemap Selector: Choose which sitemap(s) to pull suggestions from
    • Select "All Sitemaps" to search across all your presets
    • Or select a specific preset to narrow down
  2. Two Tabs:
    • AI Suggestions: Automatically generated recommendations with relevance scores
    • Browse All: Search through all pages in your selected sitemap(s)

AI Suggestions Tab​

When you open this tab, our AI analyzes your content topic and returns the most relevant pages. Each suggestion shows:

  • Page Title: The title of the suggested page
  • URL: The full page URL
  • Relevance Score: Percentage showing how relevant this page is to your topic (e.g., "87% relevant")

Click the checkbox to select any suggestions you want included.

Browse All Tab​

Use this to manually search through all your pages:

  1. Type in the search box to filter by title or URL
  2. Click the checkbox next to any page to include it
  3. Use this when you know exactly which page you want to link
  • Select as many or as few as make sense for your content
  • The selected count shows at the bottom (e.g., "3 links selected")
  • Our AI will naturally incorporate these links into your generated content

No Sitemap Yet?​

If you haven't added a sitemap, you'll see a helpful prompt when trying to use internal linking during content creation:

"AI-powered internal linking helps boost your SEO by automatically suggesting relevant pages from your site to link to in your content."

Click "Add Sitemap in Settings" to navigate directly to the Linking settings.

Source Blacklist​

What It Does​

The Source Blacklist prevents specific domains from ever being cited as sources in your generated content. This is useful for:

  • Blocking competitor websites from appearing in your content
  • Preventing citations from low-quality or irrelevant sources
  • Ensuring your content doesn't inadvertently promote competitors

How It Works​

When our AI generates content and gathers sources for citations, it cross-references your blacklist and excludes any matching domains. The blocked domain simply won't appear as a source—the AI will find alternative sources instead.

Managing Your Source Blacklist​

Where to Find It​

Go to Settings → Linking and scroll down past the Internal Linking section to find "Source Blacklist".

Adding a Domain​

  1. Enter the domain in the text field (e.g., competitor.com)
  2. Click Add (or press Enter)

Note: You don't need to include https:// or www. - outwrite.ai automatically normalizes domains. For example:

Viewing Blocked Domains​

Your blocked domains appear in a list showing:

  • The domain's favicon (when available)
  • The domain name

The count shows how many domains you've blocked (e.g., "Blocked domains (5)").

Removing a Domain​

Click the trash icon (🗑) next to any domain to remove it from your blacklist. This domain can then appear as a source in future content generation.

Pro Tips​

Internal Linking:

  • Add multiple sitemap presets for different site sections
  • Refresh your sitemaps regularly to catch new pages
  • Use the relevance scores to prioritize which links to include
  • Don't over-link—select the most relevant 3-5 pages for typical articles
  • If AI suggestions don't appear, try clicking "Generate Suggestions" manually

Source Blacklist:

  • Add your direct competitors to prevent them from being cited
  • Block domains that consistently appear as unwanted sources
  • Be specific—blocking competitor.com won't block competitornews.com
  • Review your blacklist periodically and remove domains that no longer matter

General SEO:

  • Use both features together for maximum control over your content's link profile
  • Internal links help readers stay on your site
  • Source blacklist keeps competitors out of your content