Orphaned pages

Am I about to be penalized?

[kaled]

I seem to recall whilst browsing WW someone saying that orphaned pages can generate a penalty from Google.

I have a page in my root directory that just displays site statistics. Basically, it for my personal use not visitors.

Previously, and to my surprise, this page was given a PR of 2 (despite zero inbound links). It is now gray-barred. This is fine by me but I would have expected it to be white-barred.

Should I move this page into another directory and create a robots.txt file to prevent it being crawled? Of course, this would be best practice, but do I really need to do this to avoid a penalty? And should others do the same?

[keyplyr]

Never heard of an Orphan Page penalty, but if in doubt you could add:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

to the HEAD section to stop GoogleBot from indexing it.

[kaled]

Thanks Keyplyr,

When I read someone's comments on this, I dismissed it at rubbish initially, but when I noticed that the page in question had become gray-barred, I had second thoughts.

I'll make the change you suggested though, just to be on the safe side.

[anallawalla]

it is probable that the previous PR2 was just a guessed PR and now you are either seeing a true "not in index" PR (blank). I see a PR2 when I run a stats report on my site even though my cgi-bin directory is excluded from robots. That would be a guessed PR.

- Ash

[Liane]

I had an orphan page (stupid, stupid mistake) and was suddenly rewarded with a penalty. Removed it and the penalty was lifted. It was back during the +20 or -20 penalty period which was unmistakable as a penalty. I didn't have to look far to find the problem.

Zapped the page and the penalty in one second! :Next update ... all was well with Google again.

[werty]

Are you talking of an entire site-wide penalty or just for just having one orphaned file? Or the individual file being penalized?

I think an orphaned file would become 'penalized' because it has no inbound links which would give it no pagerank.

Liane, what type of penalty did you recieve? Drop from the index, drop in PR, etc.?

I am very interested in this since a few signs point to a penalty on one of my sites.

[Netizen]

I would be really surprised if there was a penalty for having pages with no links - is it your fault nobody links to a page on your site (even if you don't)?

As anallawalla said, the PR 2 previously was probably a guessed PR from the toolbar, not an actual PR 2.

[mayor]

I sure hope these orphan pages aren't penalized.

When I develop a page it resides on my site with no internal links to it until it's finsished. I add internal links only when the page is finished. Sometimes, I start a page and don't get around to finishing it for months. I've even found some old work-in-progress pages that were sitting there unfinished for over a year.

[Netizen]

Of course, the other question to ask is, if there are no links to the page, how did Google pick it up?

[dwilson]

If it's truly orphaned, how does Google even know it exists? For that matter, are you sure Google DOES know it exists?

The "guessed PR" theory seems most reasonable, IMO.

<edit>Beat me to it, Netizen!</edit>

[Netizen]

Close call :-)

[werty]

I think the guessed/estimated PR applies too.

There has been mention of sites with no incoming links being indexed by google due to using the toolbar. Not 100% sure why it happens, but you should be able to find more info by doing a site search here.

[jilla]

I'm interested in this topic too:

Is a page an orphan if it links to the home page but has not link from the home page or site map to itself, yet might have links from another domain?

Or can a page be an orphan if it is linked to but doesn't link back to the home page or site map?

Which is the type to receive a penalty?

Liane- Can you explain the +20 point?

[werty]

[webmasterworld.com...]

posted by digitalghost:
"I've seen pages with NO inbound links indexed by Google and the ONLY way they could have been found is by visiting the page with the toolbar active. It dials home when you visit a page from a bookmark, if you type in a URL and when you click a link. Even if it "guesses" the PR it has to know what domain you're in."

edit:tried to have it show as a quote

[edited by: werty at 4:29 pm (utc) on May 29, 2003]

[kyr01]

I have to agree with werty. I had orphan pages (just for testing, but this may be a mistake to avoid) and Google was almost always able to index them. I also had a redirect from a domain I didn't use to my main site (it was a very poor meta refresh), and Google did show that redirect as an inbound link. The only possible way for Google to know about those pages was my toolbar, which now I know it is better not to keep active when you visit your orphan pages...

[allanp73]

I recently removed an entire section from one of my sites. It's mainpage had a pr of 4 and the pages that it linked to it and linked back were pr 3. Orignally, it was linked from a pr 5 page, but I removed the link and especially orphaned the section. I didn't delete the pages because I will be redeveloping the section for future use. Should I worry about this section being penalized? Will the section pr drop to pr0?

[Intermagus]

I have my resume on one of my sites. It is not linked to from anywhere but is just sitting there in case I need to email anyone a link to it. I do not wish to purchase a domain and get hosting for a one page resume so I just used space I had available.

The resume page shows a PR0 which is fine with me as I'm not even looking for a job right now. It does show up if you do a Google search for my name which surprises me as it is not linked to from anywhere and was never submitted anywhere.

Are you saying that my entire site could get a penalty because this page is stored there?

[seofreak]

Gosh I am hearing bout this orphaned pages thing for the 1st time .. this is utter non-sense if it's true .. i mean why the hell does google have to bother if it's not linked .. it's my page i don't want it linked / visited by any1 but me .. that's just a stupid penalty.

[kaled]

I don't think Google need the toolbar to find orphaned pages. While my site was still in beta (zero inbound links) it still found its way onto some search engines, notably Altavista. I did not submit it to any sites while in beta, and I'm certain no-one else did.

I believe, but am not certain, that robots have the ability to get directory listings. Therefore they can find any pages.

As for penalties, my gut instinct is that they would not be incurred by orphaned pages. However, my gut instinct was wrong with respect to hidden text. When I initiated this thread, I was hoping to attract some definitive assurance, I didn't mean to panic anyone.

So as "The Hitch-Hikers' Guide to Galaxy" said, DON'T PANIC.

Perhaps GoogleGuy can put this rumour to bed.

[1milehgh80210]

I've has 8-10 'orphaned .htm pages on my site for months and never noticed a site penalty. Rotating special product pages, half completed projects etc.
Of course the orphaned page ITSELF will receive a penalty if it loses its links, obviously.

[toddb]

Agrey bar would be right for an orphaned page as it would not be in the google index right? The early PR was a guess and since it was never linked it was probably never spidered and never entered into google thus grey bar or am I missing something. Not a penalty just the correct color.

[kyr01]

Are you saying that my entire site could get a penalty because this page is stored there?

I would say that you can probably get a penalty for an orphaned page redirecting with a meta refresh to your home page, if and when the orphaned page is found.

robots have the ability to get directory listings

No, they don't (shouldn't...). But if you have no index page for a given directory, well, it is reasonable that the bot will get the same listing any other visitor would get, which of course will include orphaned pages. (I understand this raises the question about orphaned directories, which we probably better leave alone...)