After a page has been allocated to a table or an index, that page is linked with other pages used for the same object. Figure 25-3 illustrates this linking. Each page contains a header that includes the number of the page that precedes it (“prev”) and of the page that follows it (“next”). When a new page is allocated, the header information on the surrounding pages changes to point to that page. dbcc checktable and dbcc checkdb check page linkage. dbcc checkalloc, tablealloc, and indexalloc compare page linkage to information on the allocation page.
Figure 25-3: How a newly allocated page is linked with other pages
