How to fix: Orphaned pages (in sitemap)

Updated on December 9th, 2024 at 07:54 pm

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Issue: Orphaned pages in your sitemap.xml are not linked internally, making them harder for users to find and potentially wasting your crawl budget. Search engines may still crawl these pages, even if they’re outdated or unimportant.

Fix: Review orphaned pages in your sitemap.xml and either link them internally, remove them, or decide if they can remain as-is.

How to Fix for Beginners

1. Identify Orphaned Pages: Use tools like Google Search Console or SEO audit software to locate orphaned pages in your sitemap.
   • Example: If https://example.com/page3 is an orphaned page, ensure it’s useful and still relevant.
2. Link Internally: For pages with valuable content, add links to them from other relevant pages on your site.
   • Example: Add a link to https://example.com/page3 in a related blog post or navigation menu.
3. Remove Outdated Pages: If the page is no longer useful, delete it and update your sitemap to reflect the change.
   • Example: Remove https://example.com/old-page from your sitemap and delete the file.
4. Leave Special-Purpose Pages: If the page serves a specific purpose (like a landing page for ads), you can leave it unlinked but ensure it’s still needed.

Tip: Linking valuable pages internally improves SEO and user navigation while optimizing your crawl budget.

More articles relating to Sitemaps:

• How to fix: Sitemap.xml files are too large
• How to fix: Incorrect pages found in sitemap.xml
• How to fix: Format errors in sitemap.xml files
• How to fix: Sitemap.xml not indicated in robots.txt
• How to fix: Sitemap.xml not found
• How to fix: HTTP URLs in sitemap.xml for HTTPS site
• How to fix: Orphaned pages (in sitemap)