An orphan page is a web page that lacks any internal links pointing to it from other pages within the same website. It can be extremely difficult for search engine web crawlers to discover and access these isolated pages.
Hyperlinks are the mechanism that enables web crawlers to navigate from page to page across the internet, allowing them to discover new content. Simply put, search engine crawlers struggle to find orphan pages because they have no entry points or “street signs” guiding them.
The only way a web crawler may be able to locate an orphan page is if it is explicitly listed and documented in the website’s XML sitemap. Otherwise, it remains undiscoverable.
When a page cannot be crawled, it cannot be indexed. This means it will never be displayed in the search engine results.
While some orphan pages may be created accidentally during site migrations or redesigns, some pages are intentionally made to be orphans, such as temporary landing pages.