Checks / Links, canonical and speed
Orphan pages
Listed in the sitemap but no page links to them, so crawlers rarely find them.
orphan_page · Links, canonical and speed · Warning
What triggers it
A URL is listed in your sitemap, answers 200 and no crawled page links to it (the home page is left out). Not judged when a crawled page's links were cut short.
What to change
Link to the page from a relevant page or the navigation.
How to confirm the fix
- Find a page that now links to it (the Inlinks list on the page view)
- Run a new crawl
How common it is
We have not measured how common this is on a sample of sites. Counts appear here when a study covers it.
About this check
| Check ID | orphan_page |
|---|---|
| Report section | Links, canonical and speed |
| Severity | Warning |
| How it is decided | Measured: read directly from the page or the server's response. |
| Added | Before 19 Oct 2026 (versions 1 and 2), or a site-wide check with no version date yet |
| Status | Measured in every report |
| Report gives the code | No, the fix is described in words |
Related checks
- Mixed content (HTTP resources on an HTTPS page)
- Sitemap lists a page that is not indexable
- Links to pages that no longer exist
- Sitemap has invalid entries
See whether it applies to your site
Paste your address and we crawl up to 10 pages and show every issue we find, with its fix. No account, no card.
Every plan crawls up to its page limit and lists these checks with the fix: plans.
How an audit works: method