Do I need to link to question pages?

Question

Search Engine Optimization

There is a section for free medical consultations doctu.ru/consult
We are only interested in traffic to section pages for requests such as "online doctor's consultation" or "ask a gynecologist a question for free" and similar ones in various specialties. Previously, there were links to the pages of these questions from the issuance of questions, but recently we have removed the links to the pages, leaving only the sitemap with a list of all questions. We also removed the pagination block, that is, the last 100 questions are displayed - thereby getting rid of unnecessary links within the section.
Tell me, please, is it correct that from the sections there are now no links to pages of specific questions and pagination in terms of weight distribution and pumping pages of sections like doctu.ru/consult/gastroehnterolog ?

Answer 1

it is not entirely clear what you did: did you just remove links from the sections to questions or did you close them from the index altogether?
in any case, they did it wrong. removed links - removed relinking, which strongly pumps both questions and sections. closed from the index - you lose a huge part of traffic and conversions.