{"id":32413,"date":"2022-05-15T12:35:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-15T12:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/?p=32413"},"modified":"2026-02-08T12:08:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T12:08:56","slug":"what-is-a-zombie-page","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/de\/what-is-a-zombie-page\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is a Zombie Page? Types, Risks &#038; How to Clean Up Your Site"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>One topic that has been considered after the recent Google updates to optimize the user experience of websites&#8217; content is zombie pages. Zombie pages officially swallow our site&#8217;s creep budget, reduce its credibility, and lower our site&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Search_engine_optimization\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SEO<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But do not worry! Fortunately, we can still use solutions to identify and optimize zombie pages. If you think your site is experiencing this issue, or you would like to know about these pages and prevent them from forming in the future, do not miss the rest of this article. In addition to answering the question &#8220;What is a zombie page?&#8221; We will get acquainted with the types of these pages and the immediate solutions to identify and optimize them. So join us.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"i\">What is a zombie page?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>In the definition of &#8220;what are zombie pages,&#8221; we must say that zombie pages are pages that generate little or no traffic to our site. These pages may be indexed, but they waste our site crawl budget because they fail to attract real visitors for various reasons.<\/p>\n<p>Zombie pages usually contain poor performance, very poor content, structural flaws, and no value. Over time, these pages go to the buried pages of Google (pages 10 onwards), but their negative impact on on-site SEO is increasing daily. To better understand this, we will examine Google&#8217;s approach to these pages in the next section.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"i-2\">Google&#8217;s algorithms approach to zombie pages<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>You probably know that Google has some very important algorithms for evaluating the quality of site content based on user experience: the Panda algorithm, the Freshness algorithm, and the RankBrain algorithm. Each of these algorithms considers different factors when ranking the content of different pages of our site.<\/p>\n<p>Zombie pages do not have enough value to earn points from these algorithms. As a result, when Google finds these pages useless to visitors, it either does not index them or, if indexed, buries them on pages 15 or 16 (even higher). Over time, Google will notice our passivity in optimizing and updating these pages, and this time, it doubts the credibility of our site and is gradually preparing its yellow card; Google&#8217;s approach to zombie pages is just as simple and serious.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"i-3\">Wprofoundly important essential zombie pages?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Now that we know what zombie pages are, it&#8217;s a good idea to know why identifying them is so important before we know the types of pages. In a nutshell, identifying zombie pages is important:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Improve the user experience of visitors<\/strong>; Deleting or optimizing a site&#8217;s zombie pages allows for a better user experience and increased site conversion rate.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Improving the quality score or credibility of the site in terms of search engines<\/strong>: As we said in previous articles, search engines evaluate a site from different aspects. One of these aspects is the content of the site. Modifying zombie pages will improve the credibility of our site and its position.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Site creep budget optimization<\/strong>: Deleting or rewinding zombie pages optimizes the crawl budget. This distributes the budget between the site&#8217;s most important pages.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span id=\"i-4\">Get acquainted with all kinds of zombie pages.<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>But let&#8217;s go to the introduction of all kinds of zombie pages! If, before reading this article, you thought that zombie pages are just pages that have poor content, then you will find that these pages, just like the scary and weird characters in Hollywood zombie movies, have different types, which are:<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"1\">1. Pages that are not indexed<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The first group of zombie pages is pages that have been loaded for a long time but have not yet been indexed. These pages usually have technical problems, such as long load times or scripts that do not run. In crawling the site&#8217;s pages, Google does not select slow pages, have a loading problem, or are involved in issues that are likely to be abandoned by users; As a result, these pages are not indexed because Google perceives that these pages will not be visited or will not receive direct traffic from Google.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"2\">2. Pages that are not responsive<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The next group is pages that are not responsive. These pages are not optimized for mobile or tablets, and users experience longer navigation times on mobile phones and tablets. As a result, Google fines them for trivializing the site&#8217;s user experience, which lowers the site&#8217;s ranking.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"3\">3. Pages whose content is very weak and old<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>There are two types of zombie pages:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published pages that have not been updated for several years. Google is downgrading these pages because they are no longer active.<\/li>\n<li>Pages with content less than 300 words or content that does not meet the needs of the user and is used only to fill the page are penalized and gradually reduce the site&#8217;s ranking.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span id=\"4\">4. Pages that are not optimized for search engines<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Other types of zombie pages do not meet the internal SEO criteria, such as an inappropriate title, a lack of H1 to H3 headings, a lack of SEO title and meta description, a lack of specific keywords, etc. These pages will not succeed in search engine results because even the minimum SEO on-page is not considered.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"5\">5. Important pages to which we have linked from the footer of the site<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The next zombie follows one of the site&#8217;s most important SEO elements in the main page&#8217;s footer, but has no content. Do not be surprised! Many sites still do not realize the importance of a page about us, terms and conditions, contact us, etc. While their existence is one of the basic requirements of SEO. The emptiness of these pages makes Google consider them Zombie pages.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"6\">6. Pages that are orphaned<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-darkreader-inline-color=\"\">Orphaned<\/span> pages are pages that Google crawlers do not find because they are not linked to other pages and are not accessible from the site menus. These pages have almost no chance of attracting traffic, so Google recognizes them as zombies.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"7\">7. Any page that does not need to be on another site<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>In addition to the above, some pages on sites do not require a user, and their existence is unnecessary. These pages are also a kind of zombie page. But how do we identify these pages? Is it easy to identify them? The answers to these questions are given in the next section of the content.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"i-5\">Solutions for immediate detection of zombie pages<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>As discussed in the previous section, zombie pages can take many forms. But the important thing is to identify, optimize, or delete these pages. We have to find them before we enter the optimization and removal phase. There are two ways to do this:<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"i-6\">The first method: Identification with the help of Google Console Search<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Enter the Google console search of our site and click on the Performance tab. When our site performance is displayed, click the &#8220;+&#8221; icon and select the &#8220;Page&#8221; option. From the &#8220;Filter and Compare&#8221; options, click Compare and enter the URLs of pages that we think perform poorly on a good page. This way, we can identify pages that are not working well, have a severe drop in traffic, or have no traffic.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"i-7\">The second method, Manual identification<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>This method is used for small sites that we are somewhat familiar with zombie pages. In this method, we enter the URL of the page that we suspect in the Performance section of the search console to check its index status. After knowing the page index&#8217;s status, we decide on it.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"_5\">Introducing five techniques for optimizing zombie twists and improving site SEO<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>We hope that this part of the article answers the question &#8220;What are zombie pages?&#8221; well, and that you understand the nature of these pages correctly. But whatever the turn, it&#8217;s time to introduce some significant techniques to solve the problem of zombie pages. To optimize zombie pages, you need:<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"1-2\">1. Strengthen and optimize the content of these pages<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>We must do so if the identified zombie pages need to be reviewed. With this strategy, our worthless pages are revived. So let&#8217;s try to enrich these pages with video, podcast, and content, and update the text content. After completing these steps, we can request that these pages be indexed again.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"2-2\">2. Review the internal SEO of these pages<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>For pages whose content SEO is not observed, we must do content SEO after updating the content. These include page <a href=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/best-url-shortener-for-wordpress-in-2023\/\">URL<\/a>, H1 title and tag, meta title, meta description, schema, image SEO, keyword density, introduction, call to action, and content structure layout. We must request a manual index after finishing the work using this method.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"3-2\">3. Improve the user experience of these pages<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>If you remember, we also mentioned non-responsive pages when introducing different types of zombie pages. The solution to optimizing these pages is to improve the user experience through responsive design and improved loading speed.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"4-2\">4. Redirect zombie pages<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The next step is to redirect these pages. We can redirect pages that are not content-compliant and contain important, essential, high-traffic, or related content. For example, suppose we have a few articles with poor content and no traffic, and one popular article. The best we can do is redirect all these articles to the most popular article to build credibility for that page.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"5-2\">5. Delete these pages forever<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>If none of these methods are suitable for optimizing a zombie page and that page is not indexed, delete it. <span class=\"\">To do this, go to the console search panel and the Removals section, enter the address of that page in the New Request section, and wait for Google to delete it forever.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"i-9\">Concluding remarks<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>In this article, we acquainted ourselves with different types of zombie pages and methods of identifying and optimizing them. If you need to review your site&#8217;s pages according to the description we gave, get started sooner. But if you are starting, what you have learned will help you avoid creating such pages.<\/p>\n<p>We would like to know your opinions and experiences with zombie pages. If you think there is a topic that we have not covered in this article, or you have an experience that you would like to share with us and other audiences, we would be happy to discuss it in the comments section. Rest assured, we will respond to you as soon as possible.<\/p>\n<h2>FAQ<\/h2>\n<div id=\"rank-math-rich-snippet-wrapper\"><div id=\"rank-math-faq\" class=\"rank-math-block\">\n<div class=\"rank-math-list \">\n<div id=\"faq-1\" class=\"rank-math-list-item\">\n<h3 class=\"rank-math-question \">What is a zombie page?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"rank-math-answer \">\n\n<p>A zombie page is a low-value or inactive webpage that receives little to no traffic, lacks engagement, and doesn't contribute meaningfully to a site's SEO performance. These pages often remain indexed but serve no purpose.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"faq-2\" class=\"rank-math-list-item\">\n<h3 class=\"rank-math-question \">Why are zombie pages harmful to SEO?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"rank-math-answer \">\n\n<p>Zombie pages dilute a website's overall SEO strength by wasting crawl budget, reducing average content quality, and potentially lowering search engine rankings across the site.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"faq-3\" class=\"rank-math-list-item\">\n<h3 class=\"rank-math-question \">How can you deal with zombie pages?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"rank-math-answer \">\n\n<p>You can handle zombie pages by improving their content, merging them with related pages, redirecting them, or removing them entirely and deindexing them to strengthen your site's SEO health.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One topic that has been considered after the recent Google updates to optimize the user experience of websites&#8217; content is zombie pages. Zombie pages officially swallow our site&#8217;s creep budget, reduce its credibility, and lower our site&#8217;s SEO. But do not worry! Fortunately, we can still use solutions to identify and optimize zombie pages. If [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":258932,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4012],"tags":[1146,2937],"class_list":["post-32413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo","tag-seo","tag-url"],"acf":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32413"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258931,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32413\/revisions\/258931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}