What is an Orphan page?
Proper implementation of SEO projects is not just about performing various techniques to optimize the site. An important part of the site SEO process is continuous page analysis to find potential problems and solve them. Orphan pages are one of these issues that we can only understand by thoroughly reviewing the site.
Orphaned pages are like seams and cracks in a repository, which waste our SEO efforts. In addition to denying the opportunity to reach new customers, these pages have several negative effects on the site’s SEO. But fortunately, finding and fixing them is easy. The topic we will address in the following article is identifying and optimizing Orphan or Orphan pages. Even if you are beginning to learn SEO, the tutorials in this article will help you fix your site’s orphan pages like a professional; So join us.
What is an orphan page?
Before we discuss the methods for identifying orphan pages, we should define them. In its simplest definition, an orphan page is any page on our site that does not link to any other page and that other pages do not link to.
The reason for choosing the word “orphan” for these pages is that they do not have the main page and do not connect to the content pillar of the site. The content of these pages, even if optimized best, because they are hidden from Google bots, will not receive any traffic. As a result, search engines do not have a chance to enter the results page and do not enter the ranking process. To better understand this, it is important to know the approach of Google and other search engines to Orphan pages.
Google’s approach to orphan pages’ search engines
Google and search engines do not like orphan pages. These pages are not related to other pages of our site, and no link has been exchanged between them. When there is no link, how can search engines find out where this page is on our site?
In rare cases, even if Google bots and search engines detect a team page, there is no way to transfer credit to or from this page; As a result, they leave the page and probably will not index it. But if the problem with orphan pages is that they do not index several pages, why do we say that these pages harm our site SEO? To answer this question, we need to see what role these pages play in SEO.
The importance of optimizing orphan pages in the internal SEO of the site
When Google crawls our site and crawls a new page, that page will likely be indexed and added to the Sitemap and Serp results. As a result, if a user searches for the keyword on that page, Google will display it and generate normal traffic to our site. However, since the orphan pages have no internal links and have not received any reciprocal links, they remain hidden from the eyes of Google crawlers. This means:
Orphan pages have very limited rankings and traffic
As mentioned earlier, an orphan page may have great content, be optimized for a particular keyword, and even receive backlinks from other sites. However, if it lacks an internal link, all of this is useless.
This means that orphan pages, even if ranked in the SERP results, will not rank well and will receive very limited organic traffic; Of course, they will most likely not see the color of traffic!
Orphan pages waste our site’s creep budget.
At Google, each site has a specific creep budget. That is, Google crawlers examine a certain number of site pages over time. If this precious budget is spent on orphan pages, the chances of more important pages for crawl and index will be reduced. As a result, the site crawl budget is wasted. For more information
Therefore, it is very easy to conclude that the presence of orphan pages has a detrimental effect on internal SEO and site ranking. But how can we find and treat these pages? Before answering this question, we suggest you read the ” Internal SEO ” article for more information on internal links and their role in crawling and indexing new pages.
How to identify the orphan pages of the site?
To find the pages of orphans, we must carefully follow the following steps:
1. Identify crawlable pages of the site
We need a list of all the URLs we currently have access to, and the site crawl tools can identify that. We can use the sitemap file for this. Of course, if we are not sure that this file contains information about all the pages of our site, we should get help from the tools. In the next section, we will introduce some of them. Note that pages with noindex tags or not in the site robots.txt file are not in our workflow.
2. Get the list of URLs from Google Analytics
The first tool that most of us have experience with is Google Analytics. In the next step, with the help of the All Pages section of the Behavior panel of this tool, we should receive a complete list of site URLs based on the number of visits. Although this method is very slow and time-consuming, it must be done carefully.
3. Compare the list of creepy URLs and the list of Google Analytics URLs
In this step, we must enter both lists into an Excel file and two columns. Then, the results of the two lists were compared with those of the Excel Match tool. The URLs that the Match Excel column shows us are pages likely to be orphaned.
4. Separate the final URLs in terms of traffic and visitor behavior
Finally, we need to look at the pages the Match tool lists for us, based on traffic, traffic sources, and visitor behavior. Usually, the pages that are not visited or the number of visits is very small compared to other pages, and the user does not enter another page after entering them; these are the Orphan pages we are looking for.
Introducing three practical tools for identifying orphan pages
In the previous section, we were introduced to identifying orphan pages. In this section, we want to name the tools with the help of which we can find these pages faster and more easily. These tools are three of the most common platforms that SEOs use to find orphan pages.
SEMRush tool
SEMRush is one of the most popular SEO tools, so it is no surprise that it is also used to find orphan pages. Also, SEMRush detects any orphan pages on our Map Site and pages that have been registered in Google Analytics for 30 days but have no inbound links. Of course, to use this tool, you must create a professional account.
Screaming Frog tool
Screaming Frog is an SEO tool that crawls the site like a spider. After being installed on a personal computer and connecting to the URL we want, this tool detects all the technical problems of the site that negatively impact users’ organic search, including orphan pages. It is also free to use.
Sitebulb tool
The latest tool is Sitebulb, a free trial version of which is currently available to Iranian users. Like Screaming Frog, this tool scans all pages of the site. You can even give it access to your Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts to check them more carefully.
Optimize Orphan pages with three simple methods.
But we come to the last and most important part of the story of the orphan pages, which is their optimization. Once we have found all the orphan pages on our site, we must treat them according to their nature and necessity. Orphan pages can be treated in three ways: restore, merge, and delete.
- If the page’s content is useful to users and worth preserving, we can revitalize it by updating it and building internal links (at least one link to the article page or related product or service).
- So, if the page’s content can not be updated and repaired, we can redirect it to the most relevant page on the site.
- If the page’s content is of poor quality and has expired, the best solution is to remove it permanently with the help of Google’s Search Console Removals panel.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is it important to identify and optimize orphan pages?
This is because these pages damage the site’s SEO and our site ranking by wasting the site’s crawl budget and creating a bad user experience for the audience.
What is the best free tool to quickly identify orphan pages?
Google Analytics is the first and best free tool for identifying orphan pages. However, since finding orphan pages with it is very time-consuming, we suggest using Screaming Frog as the next option.
How to prevent the production of orphan pages?
Do not leave any content without an internal link. Always try to build strong internal links based on the site’s content structure so that no pages remain stagnant and isolated.
Concluding remarks
In this article, we tried to tell you everything you need to know as an SEO expert about orphan pages. We also tried introducing you to tools to help you quickly identify and fix the problem with these pages. We hope we have fully acquainted you with the SEO of orphan pages.
