Use case
Fix orphan Shopify pages with internal links
Find Shopify orphan pages with little inbound body linking, generate orphan inbound suggestions in Link Pilot, and apply or DIY-export contextual links.
Highlights
What you get out of this flow
Outcomes you can expect when you run this playbook on Shopify.
- Overview Score deducts 35% for orphan rate (zero inbound body links—not theme nav)
- Orphan-inbound rules run with AI embeddings; you review Confidence and Why
- Apply with welcome credits or DIY export without a paid plan
Why orphan pages hurt Shopify SEO
Search engines and AI crawlers follow links in page HTML. A product that only appears in a collection grid or theme menu—but never in body copy—is easy to under-discover. Orphan or near-orphan pages also waste content investment: blog posts and guides never pass equity to the SKUs they describe.
Link Pilot’s orphan list is based on body HTML edges (description and article body), not theme navigation. That matches how contextual internal linking actually works for SEO.
How it works in Link Pilot
After index + audit, Overview → Orphans lists resources with little inbound body linking. The header Score starts at 100 and deducts 35% for orphan rate (in-degree 0 in body HTML). Suggestion generation runs orphan inbound rules in parallel with AI embeddings (same-locale cosine neighbors). You review each card’s Confidence (weighted score) and AI-written Why, edit the anchor if needed (must exist in the source copy), then approve.
- Free: audit, review, DIY export, 50 welcome credits
- Optional Link Automation: faster re-checks and digests
Example: seasonal collection with no blog paths
A footwear store launches a Winter Boots collection. Collection and product descriptions exist, but no blog or guide links into them. Overview Score sits at 61% with a high orphan deduction; 12 SKUs plus the collection show as orphans.
The merchant generates suggestions, approves 18 orphan-inbound links (typical Confidence 72–86%) from sizing guides and care articles using welcome credits, then re-audits. Orphan count drops, Score rises, and organic entry pages for winter queries start including the collection URL in Search Console.
Playbook
- Install Link Pilot and complete the store scan.
- Open Overview → Orphans; export CSV if you need a spreadsheet triage.
- Prioritize money pages (collections and top products) over policy/utility URLs.
- Run Generate suggestions if the queue is empty.
- In Suggestions, filter orphan-inbound types; edit awkward anchors.
- Approve a batch and apply with credits—or DIY export into the Shopify editor.
- Re-run audit after applies to confirm inbound counts moved.
What to measure
- Orphan count before vs after the batch
- Inbound body links to top 20 commercial URLs
- Search Console impressions/clicks on previously orphan URLs over 14–28 days
