What are orphaned webpages? Orphaned webpages are any page without links to that webpage, either from internal linking or a sitemap. Why this is an issue for SEO is that without further pathways for searchbots to crawl, search engines don’t know the webpages exist. Users will also benefit from internally linking orphaned webpages, since users will see contextual relevancy in the webpages that are linked out. SEO is always about the users AND the searchbots, whenever SEOs talk about on page SEO factors like internal linking, orphaned webpages should be thought of. An xml and html sitemap will help when internal linking is not setup to a webpage, although it’s important to do both to ensure proper indexing.
Orphaned Webpages Impact Webpage Indexing
Webpage indexing is prevented, when searchbots don’t even know a webpage is part of a website. This happens, when there aren’t any webpages on a website linking to any webpage on a website. When searchbots don’t find urls during crawling leading to orphaned webpages, they cannot crawl nor index the orphaned webpages. Any content that could be providing value to SEO is not going to be seen, and in turn will not benefit a website.
The best way to find out what the orphaned webpages are on a website, is by performing a website crawl and looking at the amount of incoming links to urls. Some CMS(s) will perform this count automatically, WordPress and Drupal are some off hand that give you an orphaned webpage count automatically. Url optimization can help with preventing orphaned pages, by having such a clean and organized url structure, making it easier to find and link to relevant webpages available
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Internal Linking Will Improve Keyword Relevancy
When orphaned webpages are linked out to other webpages on a website, searchbots discovered further keywords to rank the webpage for and thus the website. Whenever keywords are added organically, that’s a great feat for a website. Since it means more possibilities users will discover a website via the many added keyword search queries. When more webpages are linking to one another, searchbots are able to figure out keyword relationships faster. This is why using variations and synonyms of keywords as anchor texts only improves the whole process.
Keywords tell the story of a website, and if the content doesn’t use the correct keywords and webpages together in a interlinking contextual web, web traffic is missed out on. Every part of SEO plays a role either directly or indirectly with other parts of SEO. That’s why how webpages are linked together matter and why just adding links for the sake of it, won’t help. There needs to be a content relevancy plan setup that aligns with keyword research, these two are part of proper content planning.
If you suspect your website could have orphaned webpages preventing keywords from ranking, contact SEOByMichael for an SEO Audit today!
