What are Orphan Pages? How to Find & Fix Them for Better SEO!

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SEO

12 Sep, 2024

orphan-pages

Isn’t it frustrating? Despite having quality content on your website, you are still facing challenges with declining traffic. Did you consider scanning your website to find those underlying orphan pages? As they can certainly be the reason.

Orphan pages are often overlooked while optimizing your website with best SEO practices. These pages have no internal links connecting them to other parts of the website, which can be a major damaging factor for your SEO and overall user experience.

This blog will explain to you all about what is an orphan page. Why are they problematic? How to find orphan pages on your website and address them for the best SEO?

What is an Orphan Page?

An orphan page is a page that is not linked to any other page within that particular website. Such isolation signifies that search engines will not be able to index these pages, and users cannot easily access them. It's as if you've built a safe room in your house, but now it's so secret that no one can find it. It takes up space in your home and has used up resources to be built, but it still needs to be solved.

What is an Orphan Page

What are the Causes of Orphan Pages?

So, now that we have a basic understanding, Oprhan Pages damage a website's search engine rankings and contribute to bad user experiences. Let’s take a sneak peek at why these pages even exist.

Orphan pages may come into existence due to the following reasons:

1. Poor Internal Linking Practices

A frequent cause of orphan pages is when new content is created without proper internal linking. When writers, editors, or content creators create new blog posts, product pages, or any other type of page and do not link them to other pages on the site, those new pages become orphaned. This is particularly the case where no well-defined approach or procedure exists for assimilating new content into the site’s linking scheme.

2. Website Migrations and Redesigns

Orphan pages can result from major website migrations for instance, if you are changing the Content Management System (CMS) or while performing a complete website redesign. At such a time, the pages can be assigned new names, new URL addresses, or changes in the internal linkings of the pages. If it doesn’t manage redirects and link updates well in the migration process, many pages will end up being unlinked and become orphaned.

3. Temporary or Campaign-Specific Pages

Another type of orphan page is a page developed for particular marketing, events, and/or promotional activities. Such pages are developed and posted with the purpose of promoting a short-term campaign. Nevertheless, if they are not placed on the main site map and structure, they will become orphan pages when the campaign ends. Examples include:

  • Landing pages for a short-term sale or a special offer.
  • Pages standard to a conference, a webinar, or a product launch.
  • Mini-sites or sub-domains of the leading site for a specific campaign.

4. Lack of Centralized Content Governance

Without proper coordination and control over content creation and its placement on the website, one can end up with orphan pages. If separate teams, departments, or content creators have the ability to create pages without the need for editorial approval, then there is a high possibility that these pages will not have the necessary linking. Poor content governance and the absence of guidelines for site architecture and publishing content lead to orphan pages.

5. Outdated or Deprecated Content

As a website develops and expands, some pages will always be deemed stale or unnecessary, or the content may no longer be relevant to the site's current targets. If those pages are not correctly removed or redirected, they will remain on the site and become orphan pages. This is especially the case with websites that have a long history of blog posts, products that are no longer in production, or sections for campaigns that are no longer running.

Thus, knowing these causes, the website owners and content teams can take measures to avoid creating such orphans in the future. Site mapping, following the rules of content management, and proper internal linking while creating new pages are the best practices for site structure maintenance.

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Why are Orphan Pages Bad for SEO and Websites?

Why are Orphan Pages Bad for SEO and Websites?

The disadvantages of orphan pages SEO affect the site in various ways that may lead to poor performance in search engines. Here’s a closer look at the key reasons:

1. Reducing Crawlability

Crawlability can also be defined as the ease with which a web page or group of web pages can be accessed by a search engine spider (crawler). Orphan pages are not linked to other pages, so the search engine crawler cannot locate them during its search. As a result:

Reducing Crawlability

2. Loss Of Internal Link Equity

Link juice, internal link equity, is the value one web page passes to another when an internal link is used. Orphan pages miss out on this valuable SEO benefit because:

Loss Of Internal Link Equity

3. Duplicate Content Issues

Since orphan pages are not linked to any other web page on the website, they become a potential source of duplication. You will never know if a web page with similar content and information is getting de-ranked on your website due to duplicate content.

  • Content Confusion— Search engines sometimes face a dilemma regarding which duplicated web pages to index or even display to users. This may reduce each page’s dominance and result in low rankings for all versions.
  • User Experience Impact— This creates confusion and frustration for the end user since they will come across similar content in different formats. This can raise bounce rates and decrease other positive metrics used to assess user engagement, which is prejudicial to SEO.

4. Wasted Resources

Orphan pages consume the time and money from the crawl budget, but they do not really contribute to website information architecture.

  • Hosting Costs— These pages may exist as stand-alone pages occupying physical space on the server and exerting no influence on the site or its rankings. This will likely result in extraneous hosting bills, especially if the site is large and comprises many page orphans.
  • Content Creation Efforts—High-quality content that is not linked or promoted correctly can be easily overlooked, wasting the resources that would have been employed in producing it.

5. Impaired User Experience 

While this may not be influential in SEO terms, it can be critical to a user’s website experience. Lack of understanding and proper information consumption can result in users visiting the site once and never being seen again.

  • Navigation Challenges—If targeted users fail to locate content that interests them, they are most likely to exit the site quickly, resulting in increased bounce rates and low user engagement.
  • Lost Conversion Opportunities—Information that is most likely to generate a sale or a lead may be kept undisplayed, leading to lost sales.

Exceptions: When are Orphaned Pages Okay!

Even if orphan pages are regarded as nonbeneficial for SEO and users, there are certain cases when they can be justified. Knowledge of these exceptions will assist you in managing the website content efficiently. Here are some situations where orphan pages might be acceptable:

Promotional Landing Pages

Event specific page

Microsites or Campaign-Specific Subdomains

Testing and Experimental Pages

How to Find Orphan Pages On A Website?

Orphan pages are usually difficult to locate and identify, but searching for and fixing them is important to improving a website and its SEO. With the help of tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs and some manual actions, you can find the orphan page easily and include it in the site map, which is helpful for users and SEO.

How to Use SEMrush to Identify Orphan Pages

Step-by-Step Process:

Set Up Site Audit:

  • You will need to go to SEMrush and then to the ‘Site Audit’ tab, assuming you already have an account with the tool.
  • On the webpage, click the ‘+ New Project’ button and insert the URL of your website.

Set Up Site Audit

Connect Google Analytics:

  • To enrich your audit, click on the ‘Connect GA’ button to link your Google Analytics account.

‘Connect GA’

  • Click through the process to grant SEMrush the necessary permission to access your Google Analytics reports.

Google Analytics reports

Run the Audit:

  • Complete setup, then perform first site audit. This process will then continue to go through your website and identify the URLs.

Run the Audit

Search for Orphan Pages:

  • After the audit has been done, click the ‘Issues’ tab, and in the search bar, enter “Orphan.”
  • Click on the number of orphaned pages to view the list of identified orphan pages.

Search for Orphan Pages

Integrate Orphan Pages:

  • Go through the lists of orphan pages and decide to include where they belong in your site by linking them or even by clicking on the menus.

Integrate Orphan Pages

Integrate Orphan Pages:

Identifying Orphan Pages by Using Ahrefs

Step-by-Step Process:

Set Up a New Project:

  • Log in to Ahrefs and click on the Site Audit tool, which is located on the left side of the dashboard.
  • On the main window, click the + New Project option and paste your website's URL address.

Configure URL Sources:

  • In the setup process, make sure to select the Backlinks option to analyze external backlinks as well.

Identifying Orphan Pages by Using Ahrefs

Run the Audit:

  • Finish the set-up and perform a site scan. This will crawl your website and dissect its URLs.

Access Orphan Pages:

  • Open Page Explorer, click ‘Links’, and choose the ‘Orphan Pages’ option. This will show pages that are not linked to other pages within the site but have other pages linking to them.

Access Orphan Pages

Export Data:

  • Click the export button to obtain the list of created orphan pages, which can be utilized in further integration into the site.

How To Find Orphan Pages Using Manual Techniques

If you do not wish to use automated tools or do not have access to them, you can also identify orphan pages using the following techniques:

1. Sitemap Analysis

Download Your XML Sitemap:

List All URLs:

  • Scan through the URLs provided in the sitemap to see those you can determine do not have internal links.

2. Google Analytics

Access Google Analytics:

  • Log into Google Analytics and go to Behavior -> Site Content -> All Pages.

Export Page Data:

  • Export the traffic log of the pages. Search for the pages that are not visited or viewed frequently and have no links from other pages.

3. Cross-Referencing Data

Use a Site Crawler:

  • You can use a site crawler, such as the Screaming Frog, to crawl through your website and get a list of all the indexed URLs.
  • Compare Lists:

Compare the URLs in your sitemap and Google Analytics with the list provided by the crawler. Orphan pages are URLs detected in the analytics data that were not included in the crawler results.

4. Regular Monitoring

One way to ensure that you are always looking for orphaned pages is to set audit frequency. If you conduct your audits monthly or quarterly, you can discover new orphan pages as your website grows.

Strategies to Fix Orphan Pages

Having orphan pages on your website can affect its SEO and usability. However, to overcome this problem, certain measures must be taken to properly organize the site’s structure and ensure the availability of all valuable content.

Strategies to Fix Orphan Pages

Calculating the Page Value and Significance

You should determine if the content of the orphan pages is still helpful to your visitors and if it is relevant to the website’s current objectives. Consider the following:

  • Content Quality:

Check the quality of the content. Is the material well-written and informative, and does it relate to your audience? If the content is low-quality, old, or uninteresting, it may be useless to keep.

  • Traffic Potential:

Utilize the analytics tools to determine if the orphan page has had any traffic in the past. It should be maintained and marketed to attract many visitors if it has a visitor background.

  • Alignment with Current Strategy:

Consider whether the content topic is appropriate for current and future marketing and content plans. It could be helpful if relevant to a specific topic or keyword.

Decision Matrix

Once you have assessed the value of the orphan page, use a decision matrix to decide the best course of action:

  • Keep:

If the content is valuable and related to your website, it is recommended that you include it in the site map.

  • Update:

If the content is still viable but has not been updated for a while, it is best to revise it and add new information, data, or points of view.

  • Redirect:

If content is duplicated on any other page or is not useful, it is better to redirect it to the most relevant page using 301 redirects to keep its value.

  • Remove:

If the page is irrelevant or useless, delete it to improve your site structure.

FAQs

1. What do you mean by an orphan page?

An orphan page is any page on your website with no links to other pages on that particular website. This lack of connection adversely affects the possibility for both search facilities and clients to locate and access the page.

2. What is the impact of orphan pages on my site’s SEO factors?

Orphan pages cause problems such as a decreased crawl rate, a waste of the crawl budget, and decreased link juice, which can also cause duplication problems. They also negatively impact user experience, which in turn impacts SEO in terms of parameters such as bounce rate and time on site.

3. Is there any case when orphan pages make sense?

Yes, it is possible that purposefully created orphan pages exist, and they are okay on some occasions. They might be a site’s home page, a marketing campaign’s dedicated page, an event’s page, or a short-term testing page. However, these should be effectively controlled and carefully coordinated.

4. How do you determine which pages on your website are orphans?

Identifying such pages is possible in several ways, for instance, with the help of SEO tools such as SEMrush or Ahrefs that offer site audit features. Still, there are others, such as comparing the sitemap with the pages crawled or using Google Analytics data to identify the pages that are not linked internally.

5. Knowing how to find the orphan pages, the next question is, what should be done to them?

Once you have identified orphan pages, you should estimate their value and usefulness. You can link them to other site pages through internal linking, revise and recycle their content, redirect them to more relevant ones, or even delete them if they are no longer useful.

6. When should I look for orphan pages on my website?

Orphan page audits should be done frequently once major changes have occurred within a website or new content has been added. For a large, complex site, it would be a good practice to perform these checks monthly or quarterly so that the site structure remains clean and free from unnecessary orphan pages.

Conclusion

Orphan pages are problematic for SEO and usability and can seriously hinder the performance of your website. Knowing what they are, how they happen, and their disadvantages allows you to be in a better position to recognize them and work on correcting them. Preventing orphan pages includes undertaking regular website audits, proper internal linking practices, and ensuring the website has a good structure. Here are some benefits you will get by fixing such isolated pages: An increase in crawlability, better navigation, and, in turn, enhanced SEO. 

This is where JanBask comes in. Our professional SEO team offers thorough site analysis and specializes in identifying and handling orphan pages. We use sophisticated technologies to find unlinked orphan web pages and then devise a specific approach for their successful exploitation within the site's framework. Note that JanBask does not simply repair the orphan pages—we offer full-figured SEO services that include internal linking, content enhancement, and site structure enhancement.

And with JanBask by your side, you can be sure that your website will reach out to the search engines and give out its very best to your visitors. With our total exposure in digital marketing and search engine optimization, we can provide you with the desired online results, better rankings, and sensible traffic. While some of your sites have such pages, it is time to make your page the best among the competitors and collaborate with JanBask.

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