Rules: Graph & Internal PageRank

Unlike single-page linters, Black Sparrow constructs a complete directed link topology graph using Rust's petgraph library after a crawl finishes. This enables site-wide structural diagnostics.

GRAPH-001 — Orphan Page Detected#

• Severity: ALERT (-5 pts)
• Heuristic: An indexable URL exists in your XML sitemap or was reached via a redirect, but has zero incoming internal links from anywhere else on the website.
• Why It Matters: Search engines rarely crawl or rank pages that have no internal links connecting them to the rest of the site.
• How to Fix: Add relevant internal links to this page from related blog articles, category hubs, or site navigation menus.

GRAPH-002 — Excessive Click Depth (> 4 Clicks)#

• Severity: WARNING (-2 pts)
• Heuristic: The shortest path from the homepage to this URL requires more than 4 link clicks.
• Why It Matters: Search engine crawlers prioritize shallow pages. Content buried 5+ clicks deep receives minimal PageRank equity and is crawled infrequently.
• How to Fix: Elevate important pages by linking to them from category navigation, breadcrumbs, or featured content carousels.

GRAPH-003 — Dead-End Page (PageRank Equity Leak)#

• Severity: WARNING (-2 pts)
• Heuristic: A page with high internal PageRank equity contains zero outbound internal links, causing link equity flow to terminate abruptly.
• Why It Matters: Wastes internal ranking power rather than circulating it back through other valuable pages on your site.
• How to Fix: Add contextual internal links, footer links, or related-reading recommendations.

GRAPH-004 — Internal Redirect Chain#

• Severity: WARNING (-2 pts)
• Heuristic: An internal link points to a URL that initiates two or more consecutive redirects (A → B → C).
• Why It Matters: Each redirect hop adds latency, burns crawl budget, and can cause crawlers to abandon the request.
• How to Fix: Update the href on the source page to link directly to the final 200 OK target URL (C).