Orphan pages are pages on a website that are not linked to from any other pages on the site. These pages are essentially “orphans” because they are not connected to the rest of the website. Orphan pages can be a major issue for SEO because they are difficult for search engines to discover and crawl.
One of the main ways that search engines discover new pages on the web is by following links from one page to another. When a search engine crawler encounters a link on a page, it will follow the link to the destination page and crawl that page as well. This is how search engines are able to discover and index new pages on the web.
However, orphan pages do not have any links pointing to them, so they are difficult for search engines to discover. This means that they are unlikely to be crawled and indexed by search engines, which can have a negative impact on your website’s SEO.
There are several reasons why you might have orphan pages on your website:
- You might have deleted a page but forgot to update any links pointing to it.
- You might have moved a page to a new URL but forgot to update any links pointing to the old URL.
- You might have created a new page but forgot to link to it from any other pages on the site.
Regardless of the reason, it is important to identify and fix any orphan pages on your website to ensure that they are not negatively impacting your SEO.
Here are a few steps you can take to fix orphan pages:
- Use a tool like Screaming Frog to identify any orphan pages on your website.
- Determine whether the orphan pages are still relevant and should be kept on the website. If they are not relevant, delete them.
- If the orphan pages are still relevant, add links to them from other pages on the website.
This will make it easier for search engines to discover and crawl these pages. In summary, orphan pages are bad for SEO because they are difficult for search engines to discover and crawl. It is important to identify and fix any orphan pages on your website to ensure that they are not negatively impacting your SEO efforts.
