How to Boost E-Commerce SEO with Internal Linking Answers

What does ‘crawled but not indexed’ mean in Google Search Console?

• Pages that have recently been deleted and are now generating 404 errors
• Pages with no backlinks
• A collective of pages that have been crawled but haven’t being indexed
• The website has been crawled but has yet to be indexed within Google
• Pages on a website that do not have any internal links

Explanation:

• In Google Search Console, “Crawled – currently not indexed” means that Google’s bots have visited (crawled) the pages, but those pages have not been added to Google’s index yet.

• This can happen for various reasons: low-quality content, duplicate content, or the page not meeting Google’s indexing criteria at that time.

 The other options are incorrect or incomplete:

• Deleted pages generating 404 errors appear differently (usually as “not found”).

• Pages with no backlinks might be harder to discover but aren’t specifically what this status means.

• “The website has been crawled but has yet to be indexed within Google” is vague and less precise than the chosen answer.

• Pages with no internal links might be orphaned, but “crawled but not indexed” specifically refers to pages Google visited but chose not to index.

What is the best possible way to build strong internal linking with pagination?

• Using rel=”prev” and rel=”next” in the pagination HTML
• Have a sitemap page that links to all pagination URLs
• Using ‘first’ and ‘last’ buttons at the bottom of each page with pagination
• All of the above
• Linking to several sequential pages on each page with pagination

Explanation:
This is the best possible way to build strong internal linking with pagination because it:

• Helps distribute link equity more evenly across paginated pages

• Improves crawlability by making it easier for search engines to navigate through the sequence

• Enhances user experience by allowing users to jump to nearby pages without excessive clicking

Why not the others (alone)?

• rel="prev" and rel="next":

  • These were once a strong signal for pagination, but Google no longer uses them for indexing purposes (officially since 2019).

  • They still help with accessibility and clarity, but not SEO power.

• Sitemap linking to all pagination URLs:

  • This helps discover the URLs but doesn’t distribute link equity or create natural internal paths for users and crawlers.

• ‘First’ and ‘Last’ buttons:

  • These can be helpful for UX, but linking only to the ends doesn’t strengthen the overall structure as much as linking to multiple adjacent pages.

• All of the above:

  • ❌ Incorrect because not all listed methods contribute equally to strong internal linking for SEO.

What are some good places to build internal links on websites?

• Root blog page
• Home page
• With links from other websites
• Search results page
• Category page
• All of the above
• Privacy policy page

Explanation:
These pages are strong places to build internal links because they are:

• Frequently visited by users and crawlers

• Often higher in authority

• Useful for distributing link equity and guiding users deeper into the site

Here’s a quick breakdown:

Not ideal:

• With links from other websites – that’s external linking, not internal.

• Search results page – often dynamically generated and may be blocked from indexing.

• Privacy policy page – low SEO value; typically not a good place to add internal links unless required for compliance/navigation.

• All of the above – ❌ Incorrect, as not all listed options are good for internal linking.

What is a good way to locate orphaned pages on a website?

• Login to the CMS and find pages that don’t contain any links in them
• Use the ‘site:’ command in Google to find orphaned pages
• Check Google Search Console for orphaned pages in the pages report
• Crawl the website using an SEO tool and add include XML sitemaps

Explanation:

• A good way to find orphaned pages is to:

  1. Crawl your website with an SEO crawler (e.g. Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, Ahrefs, Semrush).

  2. Import your XML sitemap(s) into the crawler.

• The crawler compares:

  • Pages discovered through crawling (internal links).

  • Pages listed in your sitemap(s).

• Orphaned pages = URLs present in the sitemap but not found via internal links during the crawl.

 The other options are incorrect or less reliable:

• Logging into the CMS only shows content, not internal linking status.

• The site: command in Google won’t reliably show orphaned pages, as Google may not have indexed them.

• Google Search Console doesn’t directly show orphaned pages in its reports.

What is an orphaned page?

• An orphaned page is a page on a website that has no internal links
• An orphaned page is a page on a website that is not included in XML sitemaps
• An orphaned page is a page on a website that has no internal or external links
• An orphaned page is a page that is blocked from search engines to prevent crawling

Explanation:

• An orphaned page exists on your website but has no internal links pointing to it from other pages.

• This means users and search engines have a hard time discovering it through normal navigation or crawling.

• Orphaned pages can still be indexed if they’re in your sitemap or found via external links, but they’re often missed and can underperform in search results.

 The other options are incorrect:

• Not included in XML sitemaps ≠ orphaned (a page could be linked internally yet missing from the sitemap).

• No internal or external links is too broad; the key is lack of internal links.

• Blocked from search engines is unrelated; that’s about robots.txt or noindex, not orphaning.

How does JavaScript help search engines crawl websites?

• JavaScript makes it easier for search engines to see what websites look like for real users
• It makes it easier for Google to crawl websites
• JavaScript doesn’t help search engines to crawl websites
• JavaScript crawling is only a concern for Bing and other search engines
• JavaScript makes websites load faster than websites without JavaScript

Explanation:

• The Core Problem: Crawling vs. Rendering

  To understand this, you need to know the difference between how a search engine processes a simple HTML page versus a JavaScript-heavy page.

  • Simple HTML Page: A search engine bot (like Googlebot) “crawls” the page by downloading the HTML file. All the content, links, and text are right there in the initial code. It’s fast and easy to process.

  • JavaScript Page: A search engine bot crawls the initial HTML, which might be a nearly empty “shell” with just a link to a large JavaScript file. The bot then has to render the page—which means executing the JavaScript code in a headless browser—to see the final content that a user would see.

  This rendering process is:

  • Slow: It takes much more time than just reading HTML.

  • Resource-Intensive: It requires significant computational power on the search engine’s side.

  • Delayed: Because it’s so resource-intensive, Google often indexes the rendered content in a “second wave,” which can be days or even weeks after the initial crawl.

  Because of this added complexity, delay, and cost, JavaScript is a hindrance, not a help, to the crawling and indexing process. Search engines have had to build sophisticated and expensive systems (like Google’s Web Rendering Service) specifically to overcome the challenges that JavaScript presents.

  Why the Other Options Are Incorrect

  • JavaScript makes it easier for search engines to see what websites look like for real users: This is misleading. While rendering JavaScript is the only way for search engines to see the final page on a JS-heavy site, it doesn’t make the process easier. It’s a necessary but difficult step that complicates things. The goal is to see the user’s view, but JS is the obstacle, not the aid.

  • It makes it easier for Google to crawl websites: This is factually incorrect for the reasons stated above. It makes it significantly harder.

  • JavaScript crawling is only a concern for Bing and other search engines: This is the opposite of the truth. Google is the most advanced at rendering JavaScript. Other search engines like Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Baidu have much more limited capabilities, making JavaScript an even bigger problem for them.

  • JavaScript makes websites load faster than websites without JavaScript: This is generally false. Heavy use of JavaScript is one of the most common causes of slow page load times. A simple, static HTML/CSS site will almost always load faster than a complex JavaScript-driven one.