Orphan page

What is an orphan page?

An orphan page is a page on your website that no internal link points to. Visitors cannot reach it through your menu or other pages, and search engines can only find it through a sitemap or an external link. As a result, such a page receives little attention.

Why is an orphan page a problem?

• Hard to find: search engines discover the page more slowly and visitors never see it.
• Little value: without internal links, the page gets no authority from the rest of your site.
• Wasted effort: content that nobody reaches brings nothing in return.

Examples of an orphan page

• An old landing page removed from the menu but still online
• A new blog post you forgot to link to
• A product page of a sold-out item that was taken out of its category

How do you deal with an orphan page?

Find them by crawling your website and comparing the results with your sitemap. Add internal links to pages that have value and remove or redirect the rest. Read more under technical SEO.