Fixing an Orphan Page: Why /lawful-basis Now Appears in the Footer

Release: v0.1.73

Background

An orphan page is a page that exists on a site but has no inbound links from any other page. Search engine crawlers discover pages by following links — if no page links to /lawful-basis, crawlers can only find it via direct URL access or an XML sitemap. This significantly limits the page's ability to rank, regardless of its content quality.

Our /lawful-basis page documents the legal grounds under which sanctions screening data is processed under UK GDPR. It has genuine search value for queries like 'GDPR lawful basis sanctions screening' — but until this release, it was completely disconnected from the rest of the site.

What Was Fixed

A Lawful Basis link has been added to the homepage footer, sitting alongside the existing /privacy and /terms links:

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

This change appears in src/app/page.tsx.

Why the Footer?

Footers are a standard placement for legal and compliance links. Placing /lawful-basis next to /privacy and /terms is contextually appropriate — users looking for GDPR and data processing information will naturally look in the footer. It also means the link appears on every page that shares the root layout, giving crawlers multiple paths to discover the content.

Additional Recommendation

For further internal link equity, consider adding a reference to /lawful-basis from within the Privacy Policy page itself — specifically under the section that discusses lawful basis for processing. This creates a logical content relationship between the two pages and reinforces topical relevance for GDPR-related queries.

Impact

• /lawful-basis is no longer an orphan page
• The page is now reachable through standard site navigation
• Search crawlers can discover and index the page via the footer link
• Improves coverage for GDPR compliance and lawful basis search queries