Find Invisible Pages Using Google Analytics

One often-ignored part of SEO is making invisible pages visible. When I say 'invisible', I mean pages that have received zero clicks from organic search results.

If you can find those pages, you can decide:

• To keep them, but work to raise their organic search profile;
• To keep them, but use more of their link juice to help other, higher-profile pages on your site; 
• Get rid of them, and 301 redirect them to higher-profile, higher-value pages on your site.

Soooooo, how do you find 'em?

Turns out, a new Google Analytics feature can make it happen: Pivot table reports

Here's how you do it:

1. In Google Analytics, click 'Content'.
   
2. Click the 'Top Content' report:You'll see a list of the most-viewed pages on your site. Not much help just yet.
   
3. Now for the good stuff. At the top-right corner of the 'Content Performance' tab, click the 'Pivot' button:
   
   
4. Change 'Pivot by' to medium. Leave 'Showing' set as 'Pageviews'. You'll get a new table showing pages as the rows, and the mediums (media? mediumses?) as the columns, like this:
   
   
5. Now, sort the 'organic' column ascending (lowest values first). You'll see a nice, clear list of pages that haven't received any clicks from organic search:
   
   

That's it! You can take a look and find the pages getting zero organic clicks.

A few cautions:

1. This report will not show pages with zero pageviews overall. If a page never received any pageviews, then the Google Analytics tracking bug never fired, and the page isn't in Google's reports.
2. This data is a lot more helpful for pages that otherwise get lots of traffic. If a page gets 1 view overall and zero organic views, that may mean it's got SEO issues. Or, it may mean that the page just sucks overall. Use your judgment.
3. This is only 1/2 the battle. Don't assume the invisible pages need optimization, and that all will be well. It's possible that these pages simply shouldn't be there, or that there's a problem with how you're linking to them, or something else. Use this report as a starting point. Not an end point.

Happy Analyzing!