Fixing the /lawful-basis Orphan Page: Why Internal Links Matter for Compliance SEO

Release: v0.1.87 · SEO-14

What Changed

As of v0.1.87, the /lawful-basis page is no longer an orphan. A link to it has been added to the homepage footer, sitting alongside the existing Privacy and Terms links.

Before this release, /lawful-basis existed as a published page but had zero inbound links from any other part of the site — homepage, footer, navigation, or otherwise. The only way to reach it was by typing the URL directly.

Why This Matters

Crawlability

Search engine crawlers discover pages by following links. A page with no inbound links is effectively invisible to crawlers unless it appears in a sitemap. Even with a sitemap entry, orphan pages receive little to no link equity, which suppresses their ability to rank.

The Target Query

The /lawful-basis page targets the query 'GDPR lawful basis sanctions screening' — a relevant, lower-competition phrase for UK compliance teams evaluating whether sanctions screening software meets their GDPR obligations. Connecting this page to the rest of the site gives it a real chance to surface for that intent.

Internal Linking as a Structural Signal

Internal links do two things:

1. Pass link equity — pages linked from high-visibility surfaces (like the footer, which appears on every page) inherit authority.
2. Signal topical relevance — grouping /lawful-basis next to /privacy and /terms in the footer reinforces that these pages form a coherent cluster around data compliance and legal basis.

What Was Added

In src/app/page.tsx, the footer now includes:

<Link href='/lawful-basis'>Lawful Basis</Link>

This sits alongside the existing footer links:

<Link href='/privacy'>Privacy</Link>
<Link href='/terms'>Terms</Link>
<Link href='/lawful-basis'>Lawful Basis</Link>

Optional: Contextual Linking from the Privacy Policy

For additional contextual reinforcement, section 4 of the Privacy Policy page ("Lawful Basis for Processing") is a natural location to add a cross-link to /lawful-basis. This creates a second inbound link from a thematically related page, strengthening the topical signal for GDPR-related queries.

Summary

Before	After
/lawful-basis had 0 inbound links	/lawful-basis is linked from the homepage footer
Page was undiscoverable via navigation	Page is reachable from every page on the site via the footer
No link equity flow to the page	Footer link equity flows to /lawful-basis on every page load