Empty pages
Silktide finds pages that contain nothing at all - no visible text, images, or video. A completely empty page almost always means something is broken, such as a template error or content that failed to publish.
Why this matters
A visitor who lands on an empty page gets nothing: no content, no navigation that means anything, no clue what went wrong. Unlike an error page, an empty page doesn't even explain itself. Visitors typically assume the site is broken and leave.
Empty pages usually indicate a technical fault - a database query returning nothing, a template rendering without its content, a page published half-made - so each one is worth investigating rather than ignoring. Search engines also read pages with no content as a sign of poor quality.
How to fix it
- Open the page in your browser and confirm what you see. If content appears for you, see Troubleshooting below.
- Find out why it is empty: content deleted but the page left behind, a error, or a page created and never filled in.
- Either give the page real content, or remove it and redirect its address to the most relevant remaining page so links to it keep working.
How Silktide tests this
- Load each page in a real browser, running scripts just as a visitor's browser would, so content added by counts.
- Check whether the page has any visible text.
- If it has none, check for images, video, and embedded frames.
- If none of those exist either, report the page as empty. Pages that redirect the visitor elsewhere are not reported.
Troubleshooting
The page has content when I look at it
Occasionally a page renders differently for an automated visitor - for example, content that only appears for logged-in users, or a script that fails intermittently. Try the page in a private browsing window while logged out. If it is genuinely fine, the finding.
The page is intentionally minimal
Pages containing only a background image set in , or only downloadable files, can look empty to this check because they have no visible text, images, or video in the page itself. Consider adding a heading or description - your visitors and search engines will benefit too.