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What is an Orphan Page?
Orphan Pages refer to web pages on a website that are not linked to from any other page and appear to users as if they have been completely removed from the site.
These pages usually occur due to errors in the website’s structure or the removal of important pages from the site.
Orphan Pages can have a negative impact on a website’s SEO and ranking, as search engines may have difficulty accessing them and may not display them in search results.
To solve this problem, you need to either link orphan pages to relevant pages on the site or remove them altogether.
To identify orphan pages on your site, you can use SEO tools like Screaming Frog.
Creating orphan pages can be problematic for website SEO, as it can lead to a decrease in the site’s ranking on search engines.
Orphan pages can occur due to technical issues, non-compliance with SEO standards, the creation of new pages without links, or the removal of linked pages from the site.
The Importance of Orphan Pages for SEO
Orphan pages can have negative impacts on the SEO of your website.
If your site has orphan pages, search engines may not be able to properly access these pages, causing a portion of your site’s content to be hidden from search engine view.
As a result, this can lead to a decrease in your website’s ranking in search results.
In addition, orphan pages can also have negative impacts on the user experience of your website’s visitors.
When users come across orphan pages, they are likely to encounter a 404 error, which can cause their trust in your site to decrease.
To resolve these issues, orphan pages should either be removed or redirected to other pages that are relevant to them.
This helps to make your site more attractive to search engines and users, and helps you achieve the highest possible ranking in online search results for your keywords.
Rand Fishkin, the Cofounder & CEO – SparkToro and one of the prominent SEO experts, believes that orphan pages should be removed as they can cause issues in SEO and there is no need to maintain them.
Rand Fishkin
Why do orphan pages create problems for SEO?
Orphan pages can create problems for site SEO because they do not refer to any other page and are not referred to by any other page.
As a result, search engines cannot properly access these pages and do not use their content to examine and evaluate your site.
Consequently, this can cause search engines to fail to properly refer to your site for keywords related to your site, resulting in a decrease in your site’s ranking in search results.
Additionally, orphan pages can also affect user experience as users may encounter a 404 error, which reduces their confidence in your site.
Overall, orphan pages create problems for SEO because they have negative impacts on user experience and site ranking in online search results.
It is best to always try to avoid orphan pages on your site and, if they exist, to delete them or refer them to other relevant pages.
Neil Patel, an SEO and digital marketing expert, believes that orphan pages should be improved and optimized as they can act as a source of traffic and new audience for the site.
Neil Patel
How can we find orphan pages on our website?
To identify orphan pages on your website, you can use the following methods:
1- Use web analytics tools such as Google Analytics: With these tools, you can find pages that receive less traffic. These pages may be orphan pages that have not been referred to.
2- Manual search on the site: You can manually examine your site and find pages that have not been referred to.
3- Use SEO analysis tools such as Google Search Console: With this tool, you can identify pages that are not referred to and do not refer to any other pages.
4- Check external links: Checking links that refer to your site can help identify orphan pages. If you find a page that has not been referred to, it may be an orphan page.
After identifying orphan pages, these pages should be deleted or referred to other relevant pages to improve user experience and enhance the SEO of your site.
Reasons for creating orphan pages
Orphan pages, also known as dead-end pages, are often created for the following reasons:
Changes in website structure: If the website structure changes, it can lead to the creation of orphan pages. For example, if the site categories change, pages that are not linked to will become orphan pages.
Content removal: If content linked to a page is gradually removed, that page will become an orphan page.
Broken links: If a link to a specific page on your site exists and then the address of that page changes, the link becomes broken and the page becomes an orphan page.
Issues with linking: Sometimes, for various reasons such as typos, internal or external linking issues, or problems with SEO descriptions, pages can become orphan pages.
However, to prevent the creation of orphan pages, proper website design and management of internal links should be used.
Additionally, site structure and content management should be continuously improved to minimize the number of orphan pages to improve SEO and user experience.
To fix orphan page issues, SEO expert Brian Dean recommends seeking inbound links to these pages and linking them to other pages if necessary. He also emphasizes that improving the quality of content and increasing the attractiveness of orphan pages can help attract traffic and improve the site’s ranking in search engines.
Brian Dean
Comparison of Orphan Pages to Dead End Pages
Orphan pages and dead end pages are two different concepts.
Orphan pages are pages that have no internal links from other pages.
As a result, these pages are independent and separate from the rest of the website in terms of content and structure.
On the other hand, dead end pages are pages that have no internal or external links referring to them. In other words, users and search engine bots cannot easily access these pages.
As a result, these pages are irrelevant and useless to users and web search engines.
Therefore, although both are important for SEO, they have completely different concepts.
Orphan pages are actually related to the way pages on a website are connected and interact with each other, while dead end pages refer to the worthlessness and disconnection from other pages on the site.
How to use Screaming Frog to find orphan pages?
ScreamingFrog is a very useful SEO tool that you can use to find orphan pages on your website.
To do this, follow these steps:
First, open the Screaming Frog program and enter the URL of your website.
In the Configuration section, under the Spider tab, use the default settings and then click the Start button.
Now, Screaming Frog starts crawling your website and after it finishes, it shows you a list of pages on your site.
Now you need to enable the orphan pages filter in Screaming Frog. To do this, select the Orphan Pages option under the Filter section.
Now Screaming Frog only displays pages that do not have links from other pages.
To see the details of each orphan page, click on it and review its information.
To improve your site’s SEO, add internal links to orphan pages so that they are directly or indirectly connected to other pages on the site.
In conclusion, using Screaming Frog, you can easily find orphan pages on your site and improve your site’s SEO by adding internal links to them.
Final words
Creating orphan pages is one of the significant issues that can occur in website SEO.
If these pages are not properly managed, they can cause a decrease in the website’s ranking on search engines.
To identify orphan pages on your site, you can use SEO tools such as Screaming Frog and then use solutions such as linking to orphan pages, deleting unnecessary pages, or optimizing relevant pages to resolve the issue.
Overall, proper management of orphan pages on the site will improve the site’s ranking and its SEO.
FAQs
Orphan pages, also known as Orphan Pages, are pages that have not been linked to from other pages on the site.
Creating orphan pages is problematic for website SEO because it can lead to a decrease in the website’s ranking on search engines.
To identify orphan pages on your site, you can use SEO tools such as Screaming Frog.
