NightshiftDirect

Glossary

Orphan page

An orphan page is a page on your site that no other page on the site links to, so visitors cannot click their way to it and search engines find it only through a sitemap or a link from elsewhere. Orphan page is the industry's name for it, not Google's.

By NightshiftDirect Research. Published . Updated .

What Google says about links between your pages

Google uses links in two ways: to find new pages to crawl, and as a signal of how relevant a page is (Google Search Central). A page that nothing on your own site points to gets neither from you.

Google puts its advice in one line: every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site (Google Search Central). An orphan page is one that fails it.

How pages end up orphaned

Rarely on purpose. A menu redesign drops the link to an older service. A landing page is built for an ad campaign and never linked from the rest of the site. A page that should have been taken down stays live and stays in the sitemap, with nothing pointing to it.

Because the page still loads for anyone who has its address, nobody notices it is missing from the site. A customer browsing your menus never reaches it, and your own site gives Google no sign that it matters.

Why a sitemap is not enough

A sitemap helps search engines discover pages. Google says it does not mean every page listed will be crawled or indexed, and that a site whose pages are well linked can usually be found without one (Google Search Central).

So the sitemap is a second route, and links are the first, the same ones your visitors follow. A page reachable only through the sitemap has lost its first route.

How the free scan finds them

T8 samples pages in your sitemap that none of the pages the scan read link to, and the free report lists them. For each one, the orphan finder names a page on your site to link it from and the words to use, picked by one fixed rule that the method page sets out step by step. The Roadmap Audit includes those suggestions, and the free report shows them when T8 is the one finding whose fix it shows. T7 flags a sitemap that is missing or out of date, and the orphan check starts from that sitemap.

The scan knows only the pages it read. A page it did not reach may already link to one it listed, so look at the page before you act on it.

Fixing one

If the page should exist, link to it from the most closely related page, in words that say what it is, such as "drain cleaning in Tulsa" rather than "learn more". One good link from the right page is enough to give it a home.

If it should not exist, take it down and remove it from the sitemap. If other sites link to it, send its address to the closest live page with a permanent redirect, so those visitors still land somewhere useful.

What the free scan checks

Questions

Is a page listed only in my sitemap an orphan?

Yes. The sitemap tells search engines the page exists, but no page on your site leads a visitor there, and Google asks for a link from at least one other page (Google Search Central). That is the case T8 reports.

Does every page need a spot in my main menu?

No. A link from one related page gives it a home. Put the link on the page a reader is most likely to be on just before wanting this one, such as a service page linking to a common repair, and keep the menu for the pages most visitors need.

What about ad landing pages I do not want found in search?

Keep them out of your sitemap and give them a noindex rule, so they stay out of search results (Google Search Central). T8 only samples pages from your sitemap, so a landing page left out of it is never reported as an orphan.

Where this fits in our work

We handle this as part of SEO: A written plan built from your own Search Console and Analytics data, then the fixes and pages that plan calls for, month by month.

Related reading

Related terms

Sources