Anybody using Dan Raine's WP Silo Plugin?

[Laura B]

I'm curious whether it's necessary, whether it's worth its current price of $97, what your opinions are. Thanks for any input you can share!

[mpx305]

Yeah, I am also curious about this - however it does seem a bit expensive.

[claycath]

I was interested in trying it...til I saw the price. Too rich for my blood for a plug in. I am curious too though if anyone is using it, how do you like it?

[mattja]

I heard of this Plugin previously and had did some research on the reviews from other blogs.

However, I personally found that the free "SimpleTag plugin- Related Post feature" and "Yet Another Related Post" plugin are able to do internal linking structure automatically for you too.

Furthermore, I found some of my blog post ranked very well (with PR1-2) without any external backlink. I think the "Yet Another Related Post" plugin helps me a lot.

Hope its helpful...

[terryd]

I'm only just trying it out now on a group of smaller blogs. On the surface I can't see anything different so I guess only time will tell. It's only one small file too so for $97 I hope it does what it is meant to!

[Natlex]

Originally Posted by terryd

I'm only just trying it out now on a group of smaller blogs. On the surface I can't see anything different so I guess only time will tell. It's only one small file too so for $97 I hope it does what it is meant to!

Oh great keep us updated!

[Laura B]

Yes, I'd love to hear any updates as well. And thanks to everyone who replied.

[nettech]

I don't know how the plugin works but couldn't you just organise the content into relevant named categories? Or second option is to use the 'SEO Smart Links' plugin which automatically internlinks content. You can also specify certain phrases to link to certain pages, oh and its free.

Zaheer

[kos818]

I also stumpled upon this post while searching for more informations. There is another plugin for siloing, which can be found here: SEO Siloing WordPress Plugin

Not quite sure if it still unter maintainance, but as it was recommended in fellow warriors Kok Choons newest guide, I guess it should work with the newest 2.9x or even 3.0 version. It´s free, so worth a try ;-)

Cheers
Sven

[TheInfoChief]

I believe the point of DR's plugin and another I have seen "Virtual Silo" (both paid for) is that they are supposed to help create a silo structure (for a WordPress Blog) and organise categories in a way that is Google friendly and so tightens the theme so helping the trawl bots to understand and rank it.

Here is where I get a little confused - they are also supposed to make any outbound links nofollow (I presume) so that the bot stays inside the blog traveling in one direction, post to post around the category and up to the next category and so on until it trawls each category and post and without getting lost or distracted on route.

I am looking for a plugin that can re jig the links in that way and I would rather not pay when there may already be a free WP plugin that can do that, any ideas please?

I will look at the plugins suggested above by the other members but I did briefly install the SEO Siloing plugin and as far as I could see it created pages of posts from the selected category (header only style) but didn't do anything about outbound post links or the desired follow route for the crawlbot. John

[AdsenseBig]

Looks interesting, however I'd be doing some research for feedback before forking $97 out on it.

[Don Udell]

Raines Silo Plug-in

I have installed this plug-in on 2 blogs and it has worked as stated except for one issue. The code to over ride a no-follow tag does not work on one of my blogs... so now I will test the other one before I do more to see if this problem is universal. There is a bonus plug-n they give you which takes care of this failure in another way and it is my feeling this has been added because of this particular override issue with their coding.

Unfortunatley, they also have put all of their resource videos and information on the download page which times out, so the videos which didn't download as they should have and the ticket email address are now gone. Not to smart on their part putting everything on a timed page.

The plug-n does silo your pages within WP which is something I have not seen done by any other plug-in. I will be monitoring the effect on rankings over the next week or so to see if siloing WP does ramp the link juice as promoted.

There are 2 issues to consider... first is the best use of no-follow tags and the second is the silo effect of posts for imporved site indexing.

For the first issue there is another free no-follow robot plug-in I have found that looks impressive, here is the: Link to their homepage and video.

From the look of this WP plug-in it will do everything you need to control the indexing of your site.

But like I said, the Silo Plug-in is the only one I've seen that organises the second issue of indexing posts according to themed categories versus the chronological listing... which should prove benficial.

By the way if you click off Dan's first sales page and accept the first pop-up window the price drops to $77. Still not cheap, but if it provides the results it will be worth the investment since this has always been an issue with WP.

I hope Dan has Google alerts on and will monitor these posts and help us out.

Don

[JAAffiliates]

$97 is a bit rich for many peoples blood, but I've been using Dan's Silo Plugin For a short time and I am already seeing an increase in traffic through SERPS. There is a script if you click off that will take the price down to $77.

Google Caffeine is changing the face of SEO and the silo structure is the best way to optimize your sites. Granted the price is quite high (and the launch price ends in 24 hours according to an email I got from Dan this morning) but how much does your time cost?

Seriously, this is an automated silo structure that reconfigures for you as you create new content, it's definitely worth the price.

[seoanalyticator]

I installed this plugin a few days ago and have been running optimization tests on my site. It works well, but there is 2 large flaws.

Pros - works REALLY easy. Literally 3 buttons and your set. I like how it makes most of your links no follow

Cons - I would prefer to have more control over the links follow and no-follow. It doesn't allow you to make category posts or tags or anything like that follow. The BIGGEST flaw is that it adds a 'rel' tag into the code of your site when creating the no-follow. This caused about 200 html errors on my site, which sucks.

If they fix these 2 problems it's totally worth the $97 but as of now i've just installed meta-robot plugin (free) and am working with that less powerful one.

[JackPowers]

Originally Posted by JAAffiliates

$97 is a bit rich for many peoples blood, but I've been using Dan's Silo Plugin For a short time and I am already seeing an increase in traffic through SERPS. There is a script if you click off that will take the price down to $77.

Google Caffeine is changing the face of SEO and the silo structure is the best way to optimize your sites. Granted the price is quite high (and the launch price ends in 24 hours according to an email I got from Dan this morning) but how much does your time cost?

Seriously, this is an automated silo structure that reconfigures for you as you create new content, it's definitely worth the price.

How is Google Caffeine changing SEO?

Let's try and be factual and back up claims here.

I spammed the hell out of some blogs and they rank better than ever.

[fulankhan]

I have not invested in this
Currently-

I use the YARPP plugin, and I require that the related posts are from the same category. The silo structure requires that within a silo, there is no linking to another post in another silo. You can only link to other posts in the same category, or link to other categories. This is my understanding.

2nd, I am careful of the widgets being placed in the sidebar. For example, a common widget of "recent posts" will cause your linking to be scattered.

What do you guys think of this approach?

I am not sure how the follow/no-follow helps that some are referring to above.

[ariedel]

@aweseome2
One of the benefits is that it is easy to install and requires no maintenance.
There may be other free plugins available on then net, when I looked for them I found only the one referred by @kos818 and that requires special tags in each of your posts.
And one other paid one.

@seoanalyticator, @Don Udell
Have PM'ed you

@nettech
The silo plugin will reorganize the navigation through your blog based on the categories.
Rather than rewriting what I have on by blog asbjornriedel.com I would suggest you have a look there, for extra explanation.

Oh, and who am I to comment on these things?
Well I wrote a great part of the plugin while I worked for Dan Raine.

[JAAffiliates]

Originally Posted by JackPowers

How is Google Caffeine changing SEO?

Let's try and be factual and back up claims here.

I spammed the hell out of some blogs and they rank better than ever.

If you can not have the foresight to see how Caffeine is changing SEO I am not here to educate you. It does not take a genius to see that the changes being made by Google, in terms of the way sites are being indexed and crawled and the use of synomyms and semantics in 70% of SERPS will affect the way we need to do our SEO.

I am sure the serious and successful on this forum do not list spamming is not their SEO method of choice!

[Don Udell]

I would like to extend my thanks to Asbjorn who stepped up to the plate and solved the issue I was having with Dan's Silo Plug-in.

My case was realatively unique and Asbjorn worked with me through the weekend to resolve the issue. As a member of Dan's team he will add the change to the next release that will take care of this hyperlink problem I was having. It is a minor situation probably created by my theme design software.

So now the plugin is working flawlessly and I am confident of the SEO benefits it will provide. Great service like this deserves some recognition.

Thanks again Asbjorn

Don Udell
Keyword Solutions

[kos818]

@ariedel: I don´t mind paying for a plugin. Just uploaded the RSS bomber plugin. There is another one, which is more automated, but I prefer the way RSS bomber works, as it leaves the dirty part to my imaginations ;-)

Sounds like you have a great live. Zurich is a great city. Have been there for some training a couple of years ago once a week. Strassbourg is also not to bad.

Best
Sven

Ps: Do you offer freelance programming?

[JAAffiliates]

[QUOTE=kos818;2281798]@ariedel: I don´t mind paying for a plugin. Just uploaded the RSS bomber plugin. There is another one, which is more automated, but I prefer the way RSS bomber works, as it leaves the dirty part to my imaginations ;-)

QUOTE]

I agree--if it's worth paying for then why not? Sure there are lots of things that you can do manually for free--but if there's a tool out there to help that, then as far as I see it, it gives you much more time to focus on writing content for your site. Oh and having free time to do the things you enjoy!!

[Dr Dan]

What settings do you choose for the plugin? One of my clients installed this (silo) on their blog but I wasnt sure what settings to have it on?

Configuration Options

Do you want links to internal pages to be followed?
Do you want your Blogroll to be followed?
Silo Class name, for css definitions (default is 'silo', change it to minimize footprint

Are you supposed to check or uncheck the boxes?

[JAAffiliates]

Generally, you don't need to do any configuration.

It really depends if you want the spiders to follow any of your internal pages or pages in your blog roll.

It is explained in the installation video.

[Dr Dan]

Originally Posted by JAAffiliates

Generally, you don't need to do any configuration.

It really depends if you want the spiders to follow any of your internal pages or pages in your blog roll.

It is explained in the installation video.

I dont have access to their videos since its on my clients blog.

[ariedel]

Leave the 2 fields ticked.

In case you do not use default colors for your links (blue underlined) change the 3rd field to whatever value you have in CSS for the links.

[Social-Media-Marketing]

You don't need plugins to obtain silo effects in WP. You can do this with well planned category, sub-category, and posts. The key to silos or theme pyramids is that the deeper you drill into a topic, the more longtail the targeted keyword phrases should be. And that pages should primarily link up and down within their silo/pyramid with very little cross-linking between them.

[JAAffiliates]

While it is true that you can achieve a silo strucutre manually, plugins are designed to save time.

[Dr Dan]

Originally Posted by ariedel

Leave the 2 fields ticked.

In case you do not use default colors for your links (blue underlined) change the 3rd field to whatever value you have in CSS for the links.

Thanks I appreciate it.

[JPROPS]

I bought the new silo plugin from Dan Raine and I have to say I'm really happy with it. I agree with the previous posters, you can get the same effect manually if you have that kind of time, but why slave over something when for $77 you can get do it with all your sites in about an hour. I read somewhere that the price has gone up now but still it is money well spent if it saves you time.

[fuzzyness]

Lots of people seem happy with the ease of installation and use of this plugin, but nobody has mentioned whether it actually works - i.e. makes a marked difference to search engine rankings. Has anyone's rankings increased as a direct result of using the plugin?

Question: I use internal linking quite a bit on my blogs (using plugins like YARPP and SEO Automatic Links) which works well to improve the rankings of long tail keywords. Wouldn't this silo plugin negate the benefit of this sort of related internal linking? Maybe not... can anyone explain?

Thanks!

[JPROPS]

@fuzzyness

The ease of installation and set up is really the key issue for me because I had manually themed one of my sites and it took me the best part of a month to do it. Another real benefit for me was the other plugin that comes free with it called Link Daemon which automatically creates internal links to pages on specified keywords.

To answer your first question...

My rankings have definitely been improved as a direct result of using the wordpress silo plugin and link daemon on my main website. I don't know if I would have got the same results with just the silo builder but the two plugins work hand-in-hand.

I have gone from page 2 or 3 to the top 3 positions for all my target keywords and rank well for a lot of long tail keywords. It is a large site with hundreds of pages of content and it had become a little unfocused. The site was 18 months old and my PR was still 0 and organic search engine traffic was about 10-15% consistently. It is now PR2 and search engine traffic is at around 68%. Traffic is up about 62% on previous months.

I can't really comment on whether it would negate the benefits you are getting from YARPP and SEO Automatic Links because I have no knowledge of them or exactly what your benefits have been. What I can say is the 2 plugins together work well.

Hope this helps

[fortony]

I do not understand exactly what this plugin does. Does it actually categorize for you? If so, what happens to the categories you created when you made the site?

I'm probably missing something really basic here... Perhaps this is just something that is more useful for bigger sites?

[fuzzyness]

@JPROPS - thanks for the detailed reply, that really helps.

I guess I'm a little scared that the search engines will see the heavy internal use of nofollow and view it as 'overuse' and negate its effect in increasing rankings.

The plugins I mentioned are just internal linking plugins. They link to related content and to specific long tail keywords internally, much like Link Daemon.

What I meant by that was: if the Silo plugin forces the search engines to follow a specific path, one page at a time (by nofollow-ing all the rest of the links on the page) then won't the internal linking structure be rendered irrelevant (because they'll all be nofollowed anyway)?

[fuzzyness]

@fortony - it basically adds the nofollow attribute to every link on every page (internal and outbound) except for one. Starting at the top, this nofollowing of all-but-one links forces the search engines to visit first your first category page, then each page within your first category (one at a time), then it goes to your next category, then each page within this second category (one at a time), etc, etc.

[JPROPS]

@fuzzyness - you can configure the silo plugin to follow internal links too.

@fortony - fuzzyness is right. It doesn't put your pages in categories, you still need to do that in the usual way, what it does is makes all the links on your page no-follow so the spiders have to follow the right path through your pages.

Wordpress stores your posts in chronological order, which is how the search engines crawl them. That means posts that are linked to one another are not relevant to one another (not on the same topic). Siloing or themeing changes all that.

The plugin is really aimed at larger sites with large amounts of content because it is the amount of content that 'clouds' the overall picture of what the site is about. However, it is still a good idea for a smaller site because it automatically updates as you add more content.

[crete]

Originally Posted by JAAffiliates

While it is true that you can achieve a silo strucutre manually, plugins are designed to save time.

Your working awfully hard to defend and sell this plugin, what affiliation do you have to the plugin designer? Its become very obvious to all of us here.......

[JPROPS]

@ jaaffilates - I don't know what you did to rattle cages LOL!

@crete - without wishing to offend you, that post was 10 days ago and I think if someone who is working awfully hard they would be more active than that. It is clear he/she is an affiliate. If they were trying to hide that, they wouldn't have an affiliate link on full view!

Personally, I rate this plugin as do many others including a number of contributors to this thread, but that is just my personal opinion based on the results I've seen. I just don't like to see people taking a swipe at other forum members for doing what affiliate marketers do. Seriously, take a look at the signatures...most people have some sort of affiliate link or link to whatever they are selling.

[fortony]

JPROPS Thanks for the advice and I liked the way you handled that negative post.

Nice thing about Warrior forum is that most posters seem to have the maturity not to let things like that digress into silly bickering.

[KnowJack]

I've been watching this thread and I'm still wondering what results people have gotten from this plugin. Anyone want to pipe in with some results?

Thanks

[Listbuilding_Guru]

I used Virtual Silo, a wordpress plugin which is very similar to this one, in terms of creating no follow tags. I did not find any improvement in traffic.

I am waiting for people to review on this myself.

[JPROPS]

Originally Posted by KnowJack

I've been watching this thread and I'm still wondering what results people have gotten from this plugin. Anyone want to pipe in with some results?

Thanks

I think there are two issues going on here that are mitigating to prevent results becoming available.

1. A limited number of people who have actually bought it

2. It is still new and people who have are waiting to see the long term effects.

I discussed my early results which were promising but I'm waiting to see where I am in a couple of months. The problem is, the plugin comes with another bonus plugin (Link Daemon) and it is hard to determine if it is the Silo Plugin, Link Daemon or both that are providing the results.

[Jpaige]

I've used seo smart links, and if i remember correctly, that's almost the same as the silo plugin.

[JPROPS]

Originally Posted by Jpaige

I've used seo smart links, and if i remember correctly, that's almost the same as the silo plugin.

Sorry JPaige, you're mistaken. SEO smart links is not like the Silo Plugin it is somewhat similar to Link Daemon though.

[scottyg]

I am also considering buying this plugin and can tell you from testing that you really don't need it for small sites. If you have more than 50 - 60 pages it's a good plugin to use.

[growclicks]

@ariedel:

We've been researching your plugin for a while now. The main concern I have with it is that it doesn't follow the traditional silo structure. I'm sure there is a reason behind this so I'd love it if you could fill me in....

What I'm referring to is the lack of category to post 'follow' in the silo structure it creates. Typical silo models are where everything flows into each other, like the image on the top of your homepage (asbjornriedel.com)

But your silo structure breaks the follow from the category page to the actual post page. So on the home page there is a follow to all the individual categories and that's it. An example of this would be here:
Weblog for Asbjorn Unix Administration

None of the links on that page are followed. Not the posts or navigation. So that page would retain all of the linkjuice, however, it doesn't pass it on to its children.

The children, however, pass the link juice from child to child to next category.

So that would have me believe that you are trying to get the categories ranked by passing all of the link juice towards them, is that correct?

That means that you would have to deep link the child pages a lot more to get them to rank because they aren't receiving any juice from the homepage.

I know it would not work for a long-tail model where... lets say you have a store and you're trying to get the user searching for 'nike air jordan', because in this model would promote the 'shoes' page and leave you to deep link the crap out of the air jordan page in order to get it to work.

Is that your intention with creating this? If so, can you give me an example of a site structure where that would work?

[Turtlet]

There are many plugins that can achieve similar tasks so why bother spend $97 for it.

[stephan231]

I read somewhere before about this WP Silo plugin, most distinct features about it it has a very simple interface but it lacks customization. Personally I would recommend similar free plugin that give you even more customization options.

[ariedel]

@growclicks:

Thank you for your comments.

The link you refer to (Unix Administration) is a category page, and all links (except pages/blogroll) are nofollowed as you mention.

except one

If you scroll down to the bottom of that page. Really the bottom, you will find the followed link to the oldest post in the category. It is small and only intended for the spider.

It is described it on my post on the asbjornriedel blog and you see there a small link to the dogs1 post.

So it is not a 'plot' to get all the link juice to the categories, but rather a way to ensure that all pages are being visited by the spider.

Hope it clarifies.

[Justin_CA]

@ariedel,

Does this plugin work with sub categories within the Word Press structure?

[JPROPS]

@Justin_CA - I'm sure Asbjorn will correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know it does work with sub-categories.

I've been using Wordpress Silo Plugin & Link Daemon (the free bonus plugin) for quite some time now, as you can see I posted in this thread back in July saying I'd come back in a few months so I could talk about my results over time.

I have both plugins installed on 5 of my sites. 2 were completely new sites, 3 were existing sites that I was really hoping to increase their PR.

The sites are in a variety of niches, 3 are affiliate marketing sites and 2 are service based sites.

Results:

Traffic has increased across the existing sites (on average about 30% rise) and it's organic traffic from SERPS. I have not seen an increase in their PR at all. My estimation is that it definitely has an effect on SERPS but not on PR. In fairness, the affiliate marketing sites do not have a huge amount of content on them which is probably why. However, the service based sites have TONS of content, so I'm not sure that WP Silo Plugin actually helps with your PR (even if in theory it should).

I've tried some of the free plugins that have been discussed, my personal opinion is that they don't "do the same job". Yes, they a partial job, but for ease of use and better functionality, I would recommend WP Silo Plugin.

This is just my two cents, $97 is perhaps the top end of what I would pay for what this plugin actually does and the results it gets. However, like most marketers, my time is pretty precious and this product definitely saves time and does what it says on the tin.