One-liner
Four doc pages are listed in /sitemap.xml and reachable by URL, but no other page on the site links to them — crawlers reach them only via the sitemap, and readers not at all.
The four
/docs/concepts/metadata-driven
/docs/kernel/contracts/auth-service
/docs/kernel/contracts/cache-service
/docs/protocol/backward-compatibility
How it was measured
Local production build (next build && next start) of origin/main. Every URL in the site's own /sitemap.xml was fetched, all internal href="/..." values collected (fragment and query stripped, trailing slash normalised), and each sitemap URL scored by how many other sitemap pages link to it:
sitemap URLs crawled: 408
orphans (zero inbound links from any sitemap page): 4
Positive control: /docs/data-modeling and /docs/ai — which I expected to be orphans and are not — score inbound links from /docs, from sibling pages, and from /docs/capabilities. So a zero here means zero, not a broken query.
Why it matters
An orphan page is discoverable only by the sitemap. It accrues no internal link signal, and a reader following the docs' own navigation can never arrive at it. Whether the answer is a link from the section index, a meta.json entry, or deletion is a per-page call.
Note
/docs/kernel/contracts/auth-service and /docs/kernel/contracts/cache-service are two of a set — the other pages under content/docs/kernel/contracts are linked. Worth checking whether content/docs/kernel/contracts/meta.json is simply missing two entries.
Source
Found while implementing #12240 (JSON-LD), when checking whether a separate breadcrumb hypothesis about orphaned folder indexes held. It did not — but this did.
One-liner
Four doc pages are listed in
/sitemap.xmland reachable by URL, but no other page on the site links to them — crawlers reach them only via the sitemap, and readers not at all.The four
How it was measured
Local production build (
next build && next start) oforigin/main. Every URL in the site's own/sitemap.xmlwas fetched, all internalhref="/..."values collected (fragment and query stripped, trailing slash normalised), and each sitemap URL scored by how many other sitemap pages link to it:Positive control:
/docs/data-modelingand/docs/ai— which I expected to be orphans and are not — score inbound links from/docs, from sibling pages, and from/docs/capabilities. So a zero here means zero, not a broken query.Why it matters
An orphan page is discoverable only by the sitemap. It accrues no internal link signal, and a reader following the docs' own navigation can never arrive at it. Whether the answer is a link from the section index, a
meta.jsonentry, or deletion is a per-page call.Note
/docs/kernel/contracts/auth-serviceand/docs/kernel/contracts/cache-serviceare two of a set — the other pages undercontent/docs/kernel/contractsare linked. Worth checking whethercontent/docs/kernel/contracts/meta.jsonis simply missing two entries.Source
Found while implementing #12240 (JSON-LD), when checking whether a separate breadcrumb hypothesis about orphaned folder indexes held. It did not — but this did.