Marketing Intelligence
What Are Orphan Pages and How Do They Impact SEO?
On their race to the top of SERPs, sites may face multiple problems and get stuck in the middle. A common issue is orphan pages. These pages can directly affect your site’s performance and fixing them directly helps your SEO efforts, user experience, and resource utilization as well.
But what exactly are orphan pages, and why do they hurt your site’s performance?
In this blog, we’ll explain what they are, why they are a problem for SEO, and how you can identify and fix them.
What is an orphan page?
An orphan page is a webpage that has no internal links from other pages on the same website. Without links from the site, search engines and users struggle to discover orphan pages, which can result in reduced visibility and limited traffic. However, search engines can still find these pages through external backlinks or by crawling the XML sitemap.
Even if the content on an orphan page is excellent and follows many on-page SEO best practices, it won’t attract organic traffic without proper internal linking. For any website aiming to rank well in search results, managing orphan pages is essential. Leaving them unattended can hurt SEO performance and lead to a poor user experience.
Orphan pages vs. dead end pages
It is vital to distinguish between orphan pages and dead-end pages.
- Orphan pages do not have inbound links from other site pages.
- Dead-end pages, on the other hand, may have inbound links but do not include outbound links to other pages.
Both situations are problematic, yet SEO-wise, orphan pages are much more detrimental to indexation and user navigation.
Fixing both page types will contribute to the health of your website and will improve user experience. Dead-end pages disrupt smooth navigation, while orphan pages quietly undermine the whole website structure.
Why are orphan pages bad for SEO?
Orphan pages can significantly impact your search rankings, making it essential to address them as part of any proactive SEO strategy. Here are some core issues they create and reasons why fixing orphan pages should be a priority:
1. Orphan pages deplete your crawl budget
Search engines allocate a limited crawl budget to each site, which caps how many pages can be crawled and indexed daily. Orphan pages—pages without links from your website—consume this crawl budget without adding value, leaving fewer resources for your high-priority pages.
If search engines expend their crawling resources on orphan pages, they may overlook more valuable pages that need regular crawling and indexing. This inefficiency is particularly costly for larger sites with many pages requiring frequent updates.
2. Missing links mean missed indexing
Without internal links, search engines may never discover your orphan pages. Pages that aren’t indexed won’t appear in search results, making them invisible to potential visitors. Internal links also provide search engines with valuable context, signaling the importance of the pages you’re linking to. Without these links, orphan pages are less likely to be indexed, reducing the overall site relevance and traffic that these pages could otherwise generate. This issue can snowball, impacting your SEO strategy and hindering organic growth.
3. Low ranking potential
Even if orphan pages are found and indexed, they typically won’t rank well. Internal links distribute link equity (or ‘link juice’) across your site, building authority and enhancing visibility in search results. Without these links, orphan pages lack authority, leading to poor rankings and limited visibility in organic search.
The investment in high-quality content on orphan pages can go to waste, as these pages remain largely invisible to your target audience. Even if created with your best content creation strategies, content on orphan pages remains underutilized unless it’s accessible through internal linking.
When are orphan pages okay?
In some cases, orphan pages serve specific purposes, such as PPC landing pages hosted on subdomains (e.g., lp.example.com) that aren’t linked from the main site. Here, it’s acceptable to keep them orphaned, applying noindex and nofollow tags to prevent them from impacting the main site’s SEO.
However, if these landing pages aren’t managed correctly, they can still interfere with your SEO. When properly handled, intentional orphan pages function as expected without compromising SEO health—remaining isolated without posing a risk to the overall strategy.
How to fix orphan pages
Fixing orphan pages can increase organic traffic to your website and improve user engagement rates. Finding and fixing them is good for both your SEO and your site’s authority. Here’s how you can go about it:
1. Add internal links from other pages
To ensure orphan pages are part of your site’s internal linking structure, add relevant internal links from other pages. This integration increases their visibility and helps distribute “link juice,” enhancing their chances of ranking.
Ideally, every page on your website should have at least one internal link pointing to it. This approach not only boosts the visibility of previously isolated pages but also strengthens your site’s overall internal linking network.
2. Remove or redirect unnecessary pages
If certain orphan pages add little to no value, consider deleting them or setting up a redirect to prevent wasting link equity. Reducing low-value orphan pages can declutter your site and improve its SEO performance.
As you make these changes, keep user experience in mind to ensure any removed or redirected content aligns with a seamless site navigation experience.
How to find orphan pages on your website
Identifying orphan pages is the essential first step in resolving this issue. Here are effective methods to uncover these hidden pages:
1. Utilize SEO audit tools
Similarweb’s SEO audit tool can help you quickly identify orphan pages: In Similarweb, navigate to SEO > Discoverability > Internal Links to get an overview of orphan pages in your site.
This report reveals the most prominent issues with isolated pages disconnected from your site’s main structure. Regularly re-auditing can help you detect and address any emerging orphan page issues before they impact your site’s performance.
2. Perform log file analysis
You can use your server logs as a guide to find URLs that you have linked internally to find missing routes that users access (but don’t actually link to). This tactic requires technical knowledge but can be an eye-opener to your orphan pages.
Analyzing log files gives you a specific perspective of where the search engine and users step in and out of your website. It offers details about the performance of your website and the way the search engine crawls it.
Start auditing your site for orphan pages
Unaddressed orphan pages can undermine your site’s SEO and user experience. Regularly auditing your site to identify and either integrate or remove these pages can streamline your site structure, improve search engine visibility, and enhance user navigation. Similarweb’s SEO audit tool offers an efficient way to identify and manage orphan pages, ensuring your site maintains a well-organized content structure.
Take the initiative today to audit your site for orphan pages. Begin with Similarweb’s SEO tool stack to keep your SEO strategy robust and your website well-optimized.
FAQs
Are orphan pages bad for SEO?
Yes, orphan pages can hurt your SEO efforts. Without links connecting them to the rest of your site, these pages won’t rank for organic searches, making it harder for your SEO strategy to succeed.
How can I find orphan pages?
You can track down orphan pages with tools like Similarweb’s SEO audit, or by digging into Google Analytics and Search Console data. Comparing your XML sitemap with site data and checking server logs can also help you spot these unlinked pages, giving you a full picture of your site’s orphaned content.
What are common causes of orphan pages?
Orphan pages are often a result of site migrations, where navigation changes leave some pages unlinked, or from poor site maintenance over time. Regular SEO audits and proactive management are key to identifying and fixing these pages before they impact your site’s performance.
Can orphan pages ever be useful?
While not usually “beneficial” for SEO, orphan pages can sometimes serve a purpose. PPC landing pages, for instance, may be kept separate from the main site and tagged with “noindex, nofollow” to target paid traffic without impacting your site’s SEO structure.
How often should I perform an SEO audit to find orphan pages?
It’s a good idea to audit your site at least monthly. Regular audits help you quickly find and fix new orphan pages, keeping your site organized and SEO-friendly.
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