Do orphan pages really affect SEO?
Webmasters have been asking themselves this for years: do orphan pages really affect SEO? The answer is yes.
When you are rapidly expanding your website without having a clear strategy for doing so, it can lead to multiple stand-alone pages called orphan pages. Many might lack the proper knowledge of these, how they could affect your SEO efforts, and why they must be fixed.
Let's find out more about orphan pages and how to find and fix them.
Is it Possible for a Web Page to Become an Orphan Page?
The indexable pages in your website that lack links from any other page on the same website are considered "orphan pages." Users can access an orphan page through external links or organic search engine results but cannot get there directly from within your site.
Orphan pages usually become orphaned because of an oversight or carelessness with the website's content structure. You can contact a trusted Houston SEO company to help you manage your content and ensure pages are properly linked, determining which should be kept and which deleted.
Impact of Orphan Pages on Your Site's SEO
Search engines often have trouble indexing orphan pages, meaning the content is poorly associated or ranked. These pages can take away from your website's crawl budget since crawlers take longer to process them and are less likely to focus on more important web pages. Finally, search engines look down on orphan pages as they could indicate black hat SEO practices.
Finding and Fixing Orphaned Pages
Tracking down pages on your site that may have become orphaned can be challenging. Fortunately, the best way to do this is by combining XML sitemaps, online tools, and tracking analytics. Usually, it is best to delete them if they are useless or redirect them using a 301 redirect to keep users from getting an off-putting 404 error page.
If you find the page's relevancy still exists, you can help get it back on your site map by adding three internal links that point back to the page.
Improved Website Internal Linking Strategies
It's a very time-investive task to audit the orphan pages on a website that has been up for a while. This is why creating new content and linking it with what's already existing is very important. Improved internal linking also helps improve the navigability of your website and SEO.
From identifying the hub pages and creating topic clusters to looking for contextual and navigational links between pages, several steps can be taken to ensure that all of your pages are linked.
You must not overlook the technical issue of orphan pages, as they can really hold back your SEO efforts. Therefore, you need to regularly monitor your website and check for both the pages without a link and those not accessible from anywhere.
If you don't have the expertise and time to resolve this issue, contact professionals who specialize in comprehensive SEO Service Houston. They will be able to help you with the ongoing management of your website and improve its quality and organic growth.
Have an orphan-free website and give your SEO campaign a massive boost!