rank-math/get-inbound-links builds an inbound internal-link graph: which published pages link to a given page, including links from navigation menus.
Pass a target to inspect one page, or omit it to rank every linked page by inbound count and find the orphans.
At a glance
| Ability | rank-math/get-inbound-links |
| Toolset | Rank Math — toolset/rank-math |
| Group | Rank Math › Content SEO |
| Requires | Rank Math SEO, active on the site |
| Capability | manage_options |
| Safety | Read-only — changes nothing |
| Repeatable | Idempotent — running it twice leaves the same result |
| Ships in | AcrossAI Abilities Manager 0.0.34 and later |
How it works
Rank Math’s own link tools and this plugin’s internal-link search both list outbound links: what does this page link to. That is the easy direction — the links are in the content.
Inbound is the useful direction and the hard one. It requires reading every page on the site and building the reverse index, which is why almost nothing offers it.
It is also the direction that matters for how a page performs. A page nothing links to is an orphan: reachable only from the sitemap, given almost no weight, and usually invisible in search regardless of how good it is.
Menu links are included deliberately. They are real internal links and they are a large part of why some pages are well connected — excluding them would report a well-linked page as an orphan.
Omitting the target produces the whole ranking, which is the form to use for an audit: the bottom of that list is the work.
Input
| Name | Type | Required | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
target | string | integer | No | A post ID or URL to inspect. Omit to rank every page by inbound count. |
limit | integer | No | How many pages to return. |
What comes back
| Name | Type | What it is |
|---|---|---|
inbound | array | The pages linking in, or the whole ranking when no target is given. |
count | integer | How many inbound links the target has. |
success | boolean | Whether the call completed. |
message | string | A one-line summary of what happened, suitable for showing a human. |
error_code | string | Present only on failure — a stable machine-readable reason, such as a missing field, a wrong field type or an unmet confirmation. |
Example
Ask your assistant:
Which pages are orphans — nothing links to them?
It resolves to one call:
{
"ability": "rank-math/get-inbound-links",
"parameters": {}
}Worth knowing
- Inbound, not outbound. Every other link tool reports the other direction.
- Menu links count. Excluding them would misreport well-linked pages.
- Omit the target for the site-wide ranking — orphans are at the bottom.
- Read-only.
Related abilities
- Audit Rank Math Content SEO — the no-inbound-links check
- Get Rank Math Primary Term — what shapes breadcrumb links
Get the plugins:
AcrossAI Abilities Manager · AcrossAI MCP Manager
Browse the rest: Every ability, by category