I’ve been testing AI-assisted internal linking across a few niche sites over the last couple of months, and I’m curious how others are approaching it.

My setup is pretty simple:

– WordPress sites
– Mostly informational content with some affiliate pages
– A mix of manually placed links and AI-suggested link opportunities
– A few different tools for identifying related entities and anchor text variations

What I’m seeing so far is that internal linking does help, but only when the site already has decent topical structure. On weaker sites, the AI tends to suggest links that are technically relevant but not always useful from a user-flow perspective. In other words, it can create more links, but not necessarily better links.

A few things I’ve noticed:

1. **Context matters more than volume**
Pages with clear topical clusters seem to benefit the most. If the site is too thin or too scattered, the automation just amplifies the mess.

2. **Anchor text needs manual review**
The AI often over-optimizes anchors. I’ve had to clean up a lot of exact-match style suggestions because they felt unnatural.

3. **Good for discovery, not full automation**
I’m finding it useful as a first-pass system to surface link opportunities, but I still prefer a manual pass before anything goes live.

4. **Affiliate pages can benefit, but be careful**
I’ve seen some lift on money pages when supporting informational articles are internally linked well, but pushing too much link equity around without a clear structure doesn’t seem to do much.

I’m also testing whether this has any impact on GEO-style visibility and broader content understanding, but it’s too early to say anything meaningful there.

Curious if anyone else here is running internal linking at scale with AI. Are you seeing real ranking improvements, or just nicer site architecture?

If you’ve found a workflow that actually holds up across multiple sites, I’d be interested in hearing how you’re handling:

– link discovery
– anchor selection
– placement rules
– automation vs manual review
– tracking impact over time

I’m open to the idea that I’m underestimating the value here, but right now my view is that AI internal linking is a solid assistant, not a replacement for human judgment.