Skip to content

Discoverability

What is an orphan page and how do I fix it

Pages that exist only in the sitemap get crawled but carry no internal link equity, so they rank far below where their content deserves. It is also a common sign of routes that were started and never finished.

What 13x checks

This is rule discoverability.orphan-pages in the public registry: No orphan pages in the sitemap. It runs on every audit, against the pages we actually fetched, and its result is derived from the response rather than estimated.

Surface
Discoverability
Score weight
3 of the readiness score
Scope
Reported as skipped when the page renders only with JavaScript
Applies
To every site

Registry version 2026-07-30. Every rule is published, and the audit is deterministic — the same page produces the same finding every time.

The fix

The same text the audit hands you when this check fails on your own site.

Link to these pages from somewhere in your navigation, a footer, or a relevant index page.

If a page is intentionally unlisted (a thank-you page, a private landing page), remove it from the sitemap instead and add noindex to it. Listing a page you do not want found is the contradiction to resolve.

Does your site have this problem?

13x checks this and 112 others against your live URL in about 30 seconds. No account, and every finding comes with the fix for your framework.

No signup. Results in 30 seconds.

More discoverability checks