Orphan pages: what they are and how to find them

0:00Introduction

Lesson 6.1: orphan pages, what they are and how to find them.

0:06What an orphan page is

An orphan page is a page that no other page on your site links to. It exists, maybe it's even well written, but there's no link that leads to it. Bots can only find it through the sitemap, if it was ever added there. And an engine that can't find a page can't cite it.

0:24What Google says

Google explains it itself: many pages are discovered by following a link, from a page it already knows to a new one. And its rule is simple: every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site.

0:39Finding them by hand

To find them by hand, you compare two lists. The first is your sitemap: all the pages you declare. The second is a crawl: the pages a program like Screaming Frog reaches by following links, starting from the home page. The pages that are in the sitemap, but that the crawl never reached, are your orphans.

0:59What to do

For each one, look for the pages that already talk about its topic. Often the right words are already in the text: for example, how long a dental implant lasts. Just turn them into a link. Two or three pages linking to it are a good start. And if the page is no longer needed, merge it into another, with a redirect.

1:20Your task for today

Your task for today: compare your sitemap with a crawl, and find your orphan pages. For the five most important ones, write two links each in the Link plan tab.

1:44Next lesson

In the next lesson: how to plan and add internal links, on WordPress, Shopify and Wix. See you there.

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