Orphan Page: What It Is And Why It Is Important?

The Internet interconnects what is online in the worldwide network. If people visit a website, they must have a link that leads to that page. For instance, when you search for something on the search engine, you will find a landing page related to your search keywords. To put it simply, links are what enable us to achieve our digital goal. However, some pages are not linked anywhere on the website and they are called orphan pages. What are the reasons and effects of an Orphan page? What are the features of the orphan page? This article talks about orphan pages, their aspects are, and ways of finding and fixing orphan pages.

What is Orphan Page?

What if there is any link to a page you want to reach? Are there even pages that don’t have links? The pages without links are named orphan pages. Accordingly, Orphan pages refer to the pages that are not linked to pages or websites of your site. Most of the time, Orphan pages are often not indexed by search engines, so they cannot be tracked by other pages in search engine crawlers. That is to say, only the linked pages can find your page in crawlers. It is like a web that connects the pages. If there is no web linking to other pages, it means that it will be difficult to reach another page. Orphan pages are only accessible to those who know the direct URL.

Types of Orphan Pages

The pages that you don’t need to be concerned about are expected orphan pages. The other pages we have to be concerned about are the unexpected orphan pages. That is why you should know what kind of orphan page needs to be fixed and what the best solution is for this. Find out if the orphan pages are expected or not.

Orphan Pages Site Analysis

Why are Orphan Pages Bad?

Orphan pages are affected by low SEO ranking. Consequently, that will impact your SEO with a decrease in your page traffic and revenue. Since orphan pages do not get much organic traffic, they will not rank well in SERPs. Besides, if the orphan pages have low-value content they are likely to steal important pages’ crawl budgets.

  • Users are having difficulty reaching the natural structure of your website.
  • If you have high-value content, then it won’t reach other people.
  • Without internal links, search engines can not evaluate the semantic or structure of your page.
  • Orphan pages convey the missed getting new customers and bounce rates.
  • Links allow users to navigate the websites and find pages most relevant to them. Therefore, users will stay on your website and interact more with it, but not for an orphaned page.

Ways to Reach Orphan Pages

Orphan pages in a website have no link to lead them. However, there are several ways to get to an orphan page, you need to have a direct link or type the link.

Orphan Page Error

How Do Orphan Pages Affect?

Adding high-quality pages to a website ensures their potential of becoming used.

Pages with high potential for organic website traffic are pages that need more people to reach. Subsequently, the difficulty of accessing orphan pages can prevent people from reaching high-quality content. For example, even people who search your website on the search engines, may not be able to find your page. It also means that a page on an unlinked website has no connection to the world.

Features Of An Orphan Page

Here are some components of an orphan page:

  • No inbound links

The orphan page has not got an inbound link.

  • Live page

Orphan pages are inaccessible to people who value that page.

  • Some pages may be orphaned even if indexed

Some pages can inaccurately be categorized as orphan pages. It could be the wrong methods of some tools that ignore some indicators that the page has a link.

Site Audit for Orphan Pages

How To Find The Orphan Page?

You can try the following to address the orphan page.

  • List your website pages

To define an orphan page, you need to start listing all your pages. Once your orphan pages are not easy to find, an audit solution can not identify the orphan page. You need to list all of your websites’ URLs for the crawler to find them. To list your URL:

There are a few ways to get the URL list:

Sitemap Files

A sitemap URL is the root of your domain that allows search engines to understand your website content. Your sitemap is automatically updated when you add a new page or post to your Content Management System (CMS). Before using this, check your sitemap includes a list of your pages.

Site Audit

Download URL list

If a sitemap does not work for you, then create a list on the content management system (CSM).

  • Try a website crawl to find inbound internal links
RECENT POSTS
What is Interaction to Next Paint (INP) & How to Optimize It?
What is Interaction to Next Paint (INP) & How to Optimize It?

Google recently changed the balance by introducing a metric called next-paint engagement (INP) to track page experience. INP stands out as an empirica...

Podcast SEO
Podcast SEO

People turn to podcasts to get daily information, have fun and spend time. The number of people who want to discover new podcasts is increasing day by...

Set the auditing rule for finding pages that have no inbound internal links to identify orphan pages.

  • Analyze the results

View the result of the audit. Analyze orphan pages and accordingly figure out how to fix them.

  • Fix the orphan page

Consider how we can fix the orphan page with your website goals.

If you want users to find the page on the browser, link to it from other internal pages. If it serves a business need that doesn’t require an internal link to the page, then leave it as is. Additionally, archive it if you don’t need it anymore.

  • Test your pages occasionally

Check your site from time to time because every time you add new content, pages can become orphaned.

Conclusion About What The Orphan Pages Are

To sum up, in this article, you can find orphan pages and their features, effects, and ways to detect orphan pages. Orphan pages is an issue that can directly impact your SEO. To prevent that, you need to spot the orphan page to fix them as soon as possible.

Frequently Asked Questions About

Orphan pages are website pages that are not linked to any other page on your website. People can not access the orphan pages, at least they know the direct URL. Those pages also cannot be tracked by search engine crawlers.

Orphan pages ultimately impact your SEO ranking and decrease your organic traffic. Users can not see the natural structure of your page and find high-quality content if the page is not linked to it. So, you will miss the potential customers and get high bounce rates.

Links enable website navigation to find the most relevant pages. This allows users to stay longer on the website, but not for orphaned pages. This, in turn, affects the bounce rate, negatively affects SEO, and prevents reaching goals.

List the website pages that you can check all orphan pages. Set auditing rule to find pages without internal links. Learn about the problem to fix orphan pages.

The orphan page does not have an inbound link, and is not easily accessible to people, and some of the pages are inaccurately reviewed as orphan pages.

Fatih Karadeniz

Posts: 33

Hi my name is Fatih Karadeniz. I graduated from English Language and Literature Department and I have developed an interest in researching and writing about SEO and Digital Marketing related topics.

RECENT POSTS
Be the First to Comment on Orphan Page: What It Is And Why It Is Important?

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

(Total: 29 Average: 5 )

No comments to show.