seo/list-orphaned-content returns published posts with no internal links pointing at them.
On an established site this is usually the highest-value list in the suite.
At a glance
| Ability | seo/list-orphaned-content |
| Toolset | Yoast SEO — toolset/yoast-seo |
| Group | Yoast SEO › Content Analysis |
| Requires | Yoast SEO, active on the site |
| Capability | manage_options |
| Safety | Read-only — changes nothing |
| Repeatable | Idempotent — running it twice leaves the same result |
| Ships in | AcrossAI Abilities Manager 0.0.34 and later |
How it works
An orphan is reachable only through archives and the sitemap. Search engines discount it accordingly — internal links are how a site says which of its own pages matter — and readers essentially never find it, because nothing on the site points there.
That makes an orphan a page that cost real effort and is earning nothing, and the fix is usually a few links from related posts. Compared to rewriting content for a score, it is an enormous return for an afternoon.
The check reads Yoast’s link index. Yoast keeps a table of indexables — one row per post, term, author, archive and system page — and that table is what archive titles, breadcrumbs and the internal-link reporting are read from. It is built by a background process, and an empty index is the usual reason those features return nothing.
If the index is empty, every post has zero incoming links and a naive check would report the entire site as orphaned. So the index state is reported rather than the result — an unbuilt index produces “cannot tell you”, not a catastrophically wrong answer.
Links from navigation menus count where Yoast records them, which is why a page in the main menu is not an orphan even if no post links to it.
Input
| Name | Type | Required | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
post_type | string | No | Restrict to one post type. |
limit | integer | No | How many posts to return. |
What comes back
| Name | Type | What it is |
|---|---|---|
orphans | array | Published posts with no incoming internal links. |
count | integer | How many were found. |
link_index_built | boolean | Whether the link index exists. False means the result cannot be trusted. |
success | boolean | Whether the call completed. |
message | string | A one-line summary of what happened, suitable for showing a human. |
error_code | string | Present only on failure — a stable machine-readable reason, such as a missing field, a wrong field type or an unmet confirmation. |
Example
Ask your assistant:
Which of our pages have nothing linking to them?
It resolves to one call:
{
"ability": "seo/list-orphaned-content",
"parameters": {}
}Worth knowing
- Check
link_index_builtbefore believing the list. - Usually the highest-return fix on an established site.
- A few links from related posts is the whole remedy.
- Menu links count where Yoast records them.
Related abilities
- Get Indexation Status — whether the index is built
- Get Internal Links For A Post — one post in detail
- List Cornerstone Content — orphaned cornerstones are worse
Get the plugins:
AcrossAI Abilities Manager · AcrossAI MCP Manager
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