{"id":5652,"date":"2022-03-25T10:47:49","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T10:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seobuddy.com\/blog\/?p=5652"},"modified":"2023-05-11T07:03:37","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T07:03:37","slug":"orphan-pages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seobuddy.com\/blog\/orphan-pages\/","title":{"rendered":"Orphan Pages: What Are They and How to Recognize Them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite your best attempts, there may be some pages on your website that have the potential to rank but aren\u2019t discovered by Google. These are orphan pages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are pages you may have spent a lot of time and effort creating but they may not be getting any organic traffic as they\u2019re not in your website structure or the SERPs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, buying or building links to these pages doesn\u2019t solve the problem. The reason behind this is that they\u2019ll still remain orphan pages as they aren\u2019t linked to any other page on your website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s due to this reason that you need to be careful while doing link building. Mistakenly building a backlink on a URL of an orphan page would mean that the link juice wouldn’t pass through to other pages of your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From an SEO perspective, it\u2019s important that you identify these orphan pages and rectify them to get them indexed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, to do this the right way, it\u2019s essential that you understand what orphan pages are, how you can find them, and rectify them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, let\u2019s dive right in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What is an Orphan Page?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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As mentioned above, an orphan page is one that exists on your website but isn\u2019t linked to any other page. It\u2019s due to this reason that users won\u2019t be able to find them while browsing through your website as no other page links to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just the users who won\u2019t be able to find the page. Even search engine crawlers won\u2019t be able to crawl and index these pages as they won\u2019t be able to find them in the first place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, in turn, would mean that you won\u2019t be able to get any organic traffic on these pages as well. In a nutshell, you\u2019d have wasted all your resources on developing that page for nothing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, these orphan pages are slightly different from dead-end pages. These are pages that don\u2019t have links to any pages on your website or external websites. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, anybody landing on the page won\u2019t be able to navigate to any other pages on and off your website. They\u2019ll be forced to close the session or go back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Orphan Pages Are Bad for SEO<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are numerous reasons why orphan pages are bad for your website\u2019s SEO. Here are some of the most important ones that you should know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1. Might Not Get Indexed<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As mentioned before, an orphan page doesn\u2019t have any links pointing to it. This means that it would have very low page authority and search engines spiders may not be able to crawl the page as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would mean that orphan pages won\u2019t get indexed or may get dropped from the index. This would likely impact your on-page SEO<\/a> too. Pages that don\u2019t get indexed don\u2019t get ranked in the SERPs. As a result, you wouldn\u2019t get any organic traffic through them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Here\u2019s a <\/em>detailed checklist<\/em><\/a> to improve your on-page SEO.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Don\u2019t Drive a Lot of Traffic<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Even in the case where orphan pages are found and indexed on Google, they may not perform very well. The reason for this is that their page authority scores might not be very good due to a lack of links. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why it helps to ensure that you add these orphan pages to your site\u2019s structure. This would help in passing link authority and traffic from other pages to the orphan page. It would also help to add it to your site navigation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Take Up Crawl Budget<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s essential to understand your website\u2019s crawl budget to ensure that every deserving page gets indexed by search engines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orphan pages can play spoilsport here, especially when you\u2019ve got loads of them. You might end up wasting a large amount of your crawl budget on these low-value pages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would essentially mean that you\u2019d have a lesser crawl budget left for those pages that deserve to be indexed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a case where you\u2019ve got loads of pages on your website, you might even run out of your crawl budget. This may cause indexing issues for other pages as they might fail to get crawled by the search engine bots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Cause Poor UX<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

User experience is one of the most important things that you need to take care of when you\u2019re running a website. A poor user experience would translate into lower traffic, fewer leads, and poor sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orphan pages can adversely affect your user experience as they may contain outdated content that may not provide value to your visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if these pages do contain some helpful information, your visitors might find it challenging to reach these pages as no other page on your website links to them. This could prove to be a disappointing experience for your visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that you know why orphan pages are bad for your website and SEO, let\u2019s take a look at how you can find them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Psst. Here\u2019s a detailed <\/em>SEO checklist<\/em><\/a> to help improve your website\u2019s SEO.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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There\u2019s more\u2026<\/div>\r\n

Now it\u2019s time to discover the other 102 steps that will get more organic traffic flowing to your website. Get the SEO Checklist here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Want to get a sneak peek of what it looks like?<\/strong>
\nEnter your email and get a free demo version of the SEO Checklist.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n

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