<b>"The more internal links on a page, the better it spreads authority."</b>

<b>"The more internal links on a page, the better it spreads authority."</b>

Up to a point, then it inverts.

There's a real mechanic here: a page passes a finite amount of internal value, split across its outgoing links. Link to 5 pages, each gets a fifth. Link to 200, each gets a crumb. Your bloated mega-footer with every page on the site isn't generous — it's diluting every link to near-zero.

Google also weights the <i>first</i> link to a target and tends to ignore the duplicate anchor lower down. So your sidebar link plus footer link plus in-body link to the same page mostly count once, and not always the anchor you wanted.

What works: contextual in-body links with varied, descriptive anchors, on pages that are topically adjacent. Three good ones beat thirty reflexive ones.

Count your links per template sometime. The number is usually horrifying.

(That "link to everything from everywhere" pattern is why most large sites have a navigation problem they call an SEO strategy.)