Orphan pages: Why are they problematic?

What is an orphan page?

As briefly mentioned in the introduction, orphan pages are web pages that are not linked to any other pages within a website. They cannot be accessed through other pages within the domain as they are inaccessible. They do not link to other subpages through internal linking. In short, they are left to their own devices, and users are often completely unaware of their existence. In fact, sometimes even domain administrators are unaware of these orphans.

A more accurate term than 'orphan page' might be 'lonely island', which aptly describes the nature of this phenomenon. The page is like a forgotten island, not belonging to any archipelago, alone in the vast ocean of the internet.

It might seem that such pages don't bother anyone. However, it turns out that they pose a problem for the entire website.

Why are orphan pages troublesome?

Indexing issues: If a page isn't linked to the rest of the website and doesn't have any internal links pointing to it, search engines may have difficulty indexing it. This means the page might not appear in search results at all.

Low or no visibility: Since the page isn't connected to the rest of the website, it's difficult for users to find it. Users may not be able to discover it through search or navigation. This leads to low or no traffic to the page.

Negative impact on website reputation: For users who do manage to find an orphan page, its isolation from the rest of the website can negatively impact their experience and trust in the overall site.

How to find orphan pages?

Specialized tools such as Screaming Frog and the Yoast SEO Premium plugin can be used to identify orphan pages within a website.

Yoast SEO Premium - having installed this plugin, access your site’s CMS and find the “Orphaned content” tab.

Screaming Frog - run a website crawl. You will receive a report containing orphaned pages.

What to do with orphan pages?

Upon identifying orphan pages, it is imperative to implement corrective measures. These may include:

Internal linking: We can connect these pages to the rest of the site through internal linking. This will allow search engines to discover and index these pages, effectively reintegrating them into the site.

Content update: Before reintegrating an orphan page, ensure that its content is up-to-date, relevant, and valuable.

301 redirect: If a page was once important but is now outdated or irrelevant, consider implementing a 301 redirect to another page on your site. This will preserve link equity and user experience.

Page removal: As a last resort, if a page cannot be salvaged or reused, it should be deleted. This will prevent search engines from wasting crawl budget on irrelevant content.

Summing up…

You should regularly check your website for orphan pages, as they can hurt your search rankings. This is especially true when taking over a website that's been around for a while. Once you find these pages, you have a few options: connect them to other pages, redirect them, update them, or delete them. The goal is to always keep your website in good shape and make sure every page is useful.

➡️ Read also: What are the dangers of thin, low quality content?