Orphan page

Orphan page in plain English

An orphan page is a page on your site that no other page links to. Visitors can't reach it by clicking around, and search engines can only find it through a sitemap, an external link or by chance. Orphans are usually created by accident: a page is published and never added to menus, or a link is removed during a redesign.

How to check an orphan page on your site

Compare the list of URLs in your sitemap with the URLs a crawler finds by following links from your home page. Pages in the first list but not the second are likely orphans. Many crawling tools do this comparison for you. Then decide whether each orphan should be linked, merged or removed.

A worked example

A marketing agency builds a landing page for a campaign, then removes the campaign banner but leaves the page live. Months later, it's still in the sitemap but nothing links to it, and it's out of date. The agency either updates it and links it from the services page, or redirects it to the current service.

Where it usually goes wrong

• Publishing pages without adding any links to them.
• Relying on the sitemap alone to get pages discovered.
• Leaving outdated campaign pages live and orphaned.
• Deleting orphans that have external links without redirecting them.

Why a small site should care

Internal links show search engines which pages matter and help them discover content. An orphaned service or location page may never be crawled, or may be treated as unimportant. Visitors who would have wanted it simply never see it.

They're common after redesigns, menu changes and campaigns. Checking for orphans once or twice a year is usually enough for a small site.

Connected technical terms

• Internal linking: Links between pages on the same site that help users and distribute crawl paths.
• Site architecture: How pages are organised and linked.
• Crawl: When a search engine bot discovers URLs by following links and sitemaps.