Orphan Pages

FigureAn Orphan Page (Node D) is disconnected from the main site graph (A, B, C). It receives no link equity.

What is an Orphan Page?

Imagine building a room in your house but forgetting to put a door in. That's an orphan page. It exists on your server, but a user browsing your menu or clicking through articles can never reach it.

Why it Matters for SEO

1. Crawlability Issues

Googlebot primarily discovers pages by following links. If a page has zero incoming links, Google might never find it (unless it's in the XML sitemap).

2. Authority Void

PageRank flows through links. An orphan page receives zero internal link equity from your homepage or high-authority articles. Even if the content is amazing, Google assumes it's unimportant because you didn't bother to link to it.

3. Old/Stale Content

Often, orphan pages are old campaign landing pages or outdated products that were forgotten. They clutter your site and waste crawl budget.

How to Fix Orphan Pages

1. Link It

If the page is valuable, add internal links to it from relevant categories, blog posts, or the footer. Integrate it into your site structure.

2. Trash It (404/410)

If the page is useless (e.g., "Christmas Sale 2018"), delete it. It serves no purpose.

3. Archive It

If you need to keep it for legal reasons but don't want it indexed, keep it orphaned but add a noindex tag.

How to Audit

Standard crawlers (like Mygom or Screaming Frog) typically start at the homepage and follow links. They won't find orphan pages. To find them, you must compare your XML Sitemap list against your Crawl list, or look at Google Analytics data for pages receiving traffic that aren't in your site structure.