How to find pages on your site that nothing links to

What an orphan page is, and why it matters

Why every important page needs a link

What you need to find pages nothing links to

• A list of the pages that matter most on your site, with full addresses
• Your sitemap address, which is often your site address followed by /sitemap.xml
• Access to Google Search Console with the site added as a property
• A website crawler that reports which pages link to each page, which is a separate tool from Google’s

Find pages nothing links to, step by step

1. 1

   List your important pages

   Write down the pages you most want people and Google to find, such as your main services, products and best articles. You can start from your sitemap and remove what is not important.

   You will know it worked when You have a list of full addresses for your important pages.

2. 2

   Try to reach each one from the home page

   Starting at the home page, click through your menu and links to each page on the list. Google describes proper linking as every important page being reachable through some form of navigation, such as the menu or links on pages.

   You will know it worked when For each page you can say how you reached it, or that you could not.

3. 3

   See what Google says about discovery

   In Search Console, inspect one page that was hard to reach. The result lists any sitemaps that include it and a referring page, which Google possibly used to discover it. If no referring page is shown, that does not prove none exists. See the URL Inspection help.

   You will know it worked when You have noted the sitemap and the referring page, or that none was shown.

4. 4

   Run a crawler to list pages with no incoming links

   Use a website crawler that follows links from your home page and reports, for each page, which pages link to it. A page it never reaches, or that has no incoming links, is a candidate. Google does not publish a tool for this, so this step uses an outside one.

   You will know it worked when You have a list of pages the crawler did not reach, or that have no incoming links.

5. 5

   Compare the lists

   Compare the crawler’s list with your sitemap and your important pages. A page in the sitemap or on your important list that the crawler did not reach is an orphan candidate.

   You will know it worked when You have a final list of orphan candidates and a note of whether each should exist.

6. 6

   Add a link from a relevant page

   For each page that should exist, add a link from at least one relevant page, using descriptive anchor text, not “click here”. Make the link an anchor with an href, as Google can generally only crawl links in that form. See the anchor text guidance.

   You will know it worked when Each page on your list now has at least one link from a relevant page.

7. 7

   Recheck later

   Give Google time to crawl the pages again, then inspect a few of them in Search Console and run the crawler again.

   You will know it worked when The crawler now reaches every page on your list, and the inspection results show a referring page or sitemap.

Common mistakes with unlinked pages

• Relying on the sitemap alone. Google says a sitemap helps discovery but does not guarantee crawling or indexing.
• Using generic anchor text such as “click here”. Google asks for descriptive, concise anchor text.
• Placing many links side by side. Google says this makes them harder to tell apart and loses the surrounding text.
• Building links only from scripts. Google says it can generally only crawl anchors that have an href.

Terms used when you look for unlinked pages

Orphan page

A page that no other page on the same site links to.

Anchor text

The visible words of a link, which tell people and Google something about the page it points to.

Anchor element

The HTML tag, written <a>, that makes a link.

Sitemap

A file listing the addresses on your site that you want search engines to know about.