# Crawlable links

Category: [Technical SEO](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/technical-seo/) › [HTML, mobile & accessibility](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/technical-seo/html-mobile-accessibility/) · Also known as: a href

**Crawlable links** are links that a crawler can follow reliably. For Google these are `<a>` elements with an `href` attribute that holds a resolvable URL. Google states that it can only crawl a link if it is such an element.

## What does it mean for SEO?
Google finds new URLs mainly through links. A menu that changes pages with a click handler but has no `<a href>` in the HTML shows the crawler no path to the target pages.

JavaScript itself is fine. Google's JavaScript documentation says it is fine to inject links into the DOM, as long as they follow the best practices for crawlable links. An `onclick` on an `<a href="/shoes">` is not a problem, because the href holds a real destination. For single-page apps, Google advises using the History API rather than URL fragments such as `#/products`. For image links, Google uses the `alt` text as anchor text.

## Example
```html
<!-- crawlable -->
<a href="/products/shoes">Shoes</a>
<a href="/products/shoes" onclick="track()">Shoes</a>

<!-- not reliably crawlable -->
<span href="/products/shoes">Shoes</span>
<a onclick="goTo('/products/shoes')">Shoes</a>
<a href="javascript:goTo('shoes')">Shoes</a>
```
The examples follow Google's link documentation.

## Common mistakes
- Buttons or `div` elements that navigate only through click handlers.
- `href="#"` or `javascript:` placeholders for real pages.
- Hash-based routing instead of the History API.

*Diagram: Raw HTML vs. rendered HTML.* The raw HTML of a JavaScript page lacks the title, heading and links. Google indexes the rendered HTML and parses it for links again.

## Related terms

- [Anchor element](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/anchor-element/index.md)
- [Footer links](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/footer-links/index.md)
- [Buying links](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/buying-links/index.md)

## Sources

- [SEO link best practices – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/links-crawlable)
- [JavaScript SEO basics – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/javascript/javascript-seo-basics)

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Last updated: October 8, 2026
URL: https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/crawlable-links/