Great links to "orphan" pages - will it help build domain authority?

[at2000]

Hi All,

Not sure if "orphan" is a good word for it, but here is an example:

Let's suppose I have a page http://example.com/a, and this page doesn't have any links to any other page on domain example.com. If I manage to get a link to this page from a very reputable site, will it still help build my domain authority and possibly drive more traffic from SE?

What if I have 5-6 such pages with very good sites pointing to these pages?

Thank you.

[tedster]

If those pages don't link into any other page on the domain, then I'd say there is no help for the domain itself. Certainly no PR gets circulated.

The only factor I can think of is that a couple Google patents mention recording every time a page from the domain gets an impression in the SERPs, but it's a very minor factor.

I've never tested the idea, however - this is just my best guess.

[edited by: tedster at 8:20 am (utc) on Feb 17, 2010]

[tangor]

In the most simplistic terms "link juice" is specific to the page that receives it. If there is a desire for any of that to help the rest of the site, then that page needs to be visible on the site ie. linked to some page on the site.

[Simsi]

In light of the comments on Analytics being used in SERPS ([webmasterworld.com ]), if the orphaned page used the same GA code as the main domain, would that not influence Google's thoughts though?

[tedster]

But the comment in that thread says they're is "speculation" - it has not be proven or confirmed. Until someone confirms that the speculation is true, and on top of that, we know exactly HOW analytics is being used in ranking, there's no good answer to your question.

For example, according to some speculation one place that GA might be in use, is in selecting Sitelinks. It seems unlikely to me that an orphan page would ever be chosen for a Sitelink, with or without GA.

[SEOtop10]

@at2000 - I am a loss to understand why you cannot have a link to your home page or some other money page from this 'orphan' page to reap the benefit of the strong incoming links.

Arun

[piatkow]

I am a loss to understand why you cannot have a link to your home page or some other money page from this 'orphan' page to reap the benefit of the strong incoming links.

Me too. The only time that I have created a page that didn't link back to either the home page or its parent was a confirmation page that was intended to open in a new window and to be closed afterwards. Even then I susequently decided that was a mistake.

Even if the target page is intended to be framedyou can still create a frame busting link to return to the home page.