Today we will take a closer look at what orphan pages are, why their presence on a site is harmful from an SEO point of view, how to detect and exclude them. We are sure that the information will be useful for you.
What pages are call orphans and why are they harmful
Orphan pages are pages of a site that special database are not link to from other pages and have no outgoing links. Such pages are also call “lost”. They are in a kind of “vacuum”, they exist on their own, although they are part of the site.
Why does the presence of orphan pages on a website negatively affect its SEO indicators and ranking?
There are actually several reasons:
- Orphan pages are not index by search engines because search robots usually find new pages by following links from already index ones. Accordingly, if no links lead to a page, it will most likely never be index.
- Orphan pages degrade the user experience because they are not link to other pages and do not offer any further action. When a user lands on such a page, they are effectively “at a dead end” and cannot go anywhere else. They leave the site, which increases the bounce rate.
- Orphan pages may contain valuable content that is no longer accessible to users. For example, page A leads the user to page B. But for some reason, page A is delete, and B becomes an “orphan.” Site visitors cannot access it and view the valuable content.
This is far from a complete list of how such pages can negatively affect the overall performance of the site, its position in search results and user convenience.
Important! The presence of orphan pages is not always a problem. Often such pages are created intentionally. For example, if they are use for internal purposes of the company and their indexing by search engines is not require. In this case, their use is completely justified.
Let’s also add that if you have a large site with a complex structure, then the presence of several or even a dozen orphan pages will not become a critical problem and will not lead to a deterioration in positions. But if there are really many such pages, then the indicators may still deteriorate. And in this case, the situation needs to be correcte.
Where do orphan pages come from on a site?
There are several reasons why such pages may appear.
- Incorrect website structure . For example, lack of navigation, incorrect menu organization, etc.
- Deleting pages. As describe bot chirijikal tèlman chè an plas an premy above, deleting one page can make another “orphan”. Therefore, it is important to redirect users to other pages when deleting (do a redirect).
- Changing URLs: If you change URLs, it is very important to remember to update all the links that point to those pages. Otherwise, the old links will point to non-existent ones.
- Technical errors . Code errors, duplicate pages, other technical aspects and shortcomings can lead to the appearance of orphan pages on the site.
Often, orphaned pages are caused by external factors. For example, deleting links to your site from other web resources. This is often observed when publishing temporary links on third-party sites. Therefore, it is important to do internal cross-linking on the site, and not just incoming links from third-party resources.
How to find orphan pages on a website
When the reason for the appearance of by lists orphan pages is a change in the structure of the site or the deletion of other pages, it is not always possible to detect in a timely manner that “orphans” have appeared. And searching for them manually is not the easiest task and is often fundamentally impossible.
Fortunately, there are special services that help find orphaned pages as quickly and accurately as possible. These are the so-called website crawlers. First of all, we recommend paying attention to Netpeak Spider and Screaming Frog SEO Spider. These programs allow you to analyze the structure of the site and identify pages that are known to search engines, but are not related to other pages of the site. To do this, you need to connect data from Google Search Console to the program and start scanning the site. After that, you can get a report on orphaned pages and take measures to fix them.
For example, to find orphan pages using Screaming Frog, you need to:
1. Launch the program and connect data from Google Search Console.
2. Connect your account and give permission to read data.
Here you can see a list of pages that return a 200 response code. This code means that the pages exist, but they have no internal link to the site, i.e. they are “orphans”.
As you can see, there is nothing complicated here. The only nuance: Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a paid service. A yearly subscription costs $259. You can use the free version. But it has quite limited functionality. In particular, the Crawl Limit is 500 URLs, which may not be enough. The paid version has no limits.
What to do with orphan pages
Once you find orphan pages on your site, there are a few steps you need to take.
- Add relevant internal links. Cross-link these pages with others, add both incoming and outgoing links. But make sure they fit naturally into the existing content and at the same time provide value to the reader.
- Improve navigation. Make sure the navigation menu and sitemap include the main pages, and that the pages themselves are interlinked with other, less important pages. Eventually, this structure should intertwine with orphan pages as well.
- Delete unnecessary pages. It is not always worth saving orphan pages. If the information on them is outdated, irrelevant and does not carry any special value, sometimes the best solution is to delete them. And you can set up 301 redirects on related pages to preserve the site structure.
Also, do not forget to regularly audit the site using the services listed above to promptly detect and correct orphan pages. This will help maintain SEO indicators at a high level, avoid deterioration in ranking and a drop in positions in search results.
