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Fix Missing Pages in OTTO SEO On-Page Optimization

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Camilo Aponte

Camilo Aponte

Last updated on Sep 30, 2026

🧭 Overview

After re-crawling your site, you may notice that certain pages — especially important money pages — do not appear in the OTTO Grader (Onpage Optimizations) section of OTTO SEO. This is often caused by those pages being orphaned (no internal links pointing to them) and also missing from your sitemap. Since OTTO SEO discovers pages by following internal links during a crawl and by reading sitemap files, pages that are neither linked nor included in a sitemap are invisible to the crawler by default.

This article explains why this happens and walks you through the steps to get those pages indexed and optimized inside OTTO SEO.

❓ Why Orphaned Pages Are Not Detected

OTTO SEO crawls your site the same way search engines do — by starting from your homepage, following internal links from page to page, and discovering URLs listed in your sitemap files. If a page has no internal links pointing to it and is not included in a sitemap, the crawler has no path to reach it, so it never appears in your OTTO Grader (Onpage Optimizations) queue, regardless of how many times you re-crawl.

Common reasons a page becomes orphaned include:

  • The page was created but never added to a menu, category, or internal linking structure.
  • Internal links to the page were removed during a site redesign or content update.
  • The page was recently published but has not yet been linked from any other page on the site.

⚙️ How to Fix Orphaned Pages

There are two approaches: fix the underlying orphan issue so OTTO SEO can discover the page naturally, or escalate to the support team for a backend review of your crawl settings.

  1. Add internal links to the orphaned page, or include it in your sitemap. Link to the page from at least one other crawlable page on your site — such as your homepage, a relevant blog post, a category page, or your site navigation — or add the URL to your sitemap. Once an internal link exists or the page appears in the sitemap, the next crawl will discover and include the page.
  2. Re-crawl your site after adding internal links or updating your sitemap. Trigger a new crawl of your OTTO SEO project and allow it to complete fully before checking OTTO Grader (Onpage Optimizations) under OTTO SEO → Overview (or OTTO SEO → All Sites → select a site → OTTO Grader) for the updated page list.
  3. Verify the page is not blocked. Confirm the orphaned page is not excluded by your robots.txt file or a noindex tag, as either of these can prevent OTTO SEO from processing the page even when it is linked.
  4. Escalate if pages are still missing. If the page remains absent after adding internal links or sitemap entries and re-crawling, contact the support team. When you reach out, have your project name, the exact URLs of the missing pages, and the date of your most recent crawl ready so the team can investigate your crawl settings on the backend.

If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.