Silo Structure for a 10,000 page website

10 replies
  • SEO
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Hey guys:

I have over 10,000 articles that are unique (they are all over 600 words) and I want to do this right since I'll be building a mega site.

First place, my CMS is Wordpress. I will not be using any posts (if someone disagrees with me, please let me know - I would love to hear your point), I will be using nothing but pages. This will be a huge information website.

I will be placing these articles (that never have been online) in a silo structure. Now - before I start, I want to make sure that I am doing the silo structure correctly. Please see below:


Index Page

Color of Cats


Black Cats
White Cats
Yellow Cats



As you can see, I have just one silo. I will have links on the - let's say - "Color of Cats" page to the "Black Cats", "White Cats" and "Yellow Cats" pages.

Now here is the question. To allow the bots to crawl better, should I have on the "Black Cats" page, a link to the "White Cats" page as well as a link back to the "Color of Cats" page?

Then the next question would be - on the "White Cats" page, would I have a link going to both the "Black Cats" & "Yellow Cats" page AND a link going back to the "Color of Cats" page?

It makes sense to me to have it layed out this way since the bots looks at sites as linier. If I am wrong, please let me know how the silo structure should look like using my examples.

Thanks guys so much!
#page #silo #structure #website
  • Profile picture of the author ilee
    All the pages in the silo will link to each other so:

    black cats \
    white cats | ------> will all be linked together
    red cats /

    The idea is to have the silos as tightly themed as possible so that a person reading the article on black cats, would be interested in reading the other articles that it links to.

    It doesn't really matter whether you use posts or pages. Personally I like to keep all the articles in posts and all the random bits and bobs as pages but that's a personal preference.
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  • Profile picture of the author bigcat1967
    All the pages in the silo will link to each other so:

    black cats
    white cats | ------> will all be linked together
    red cats /

    The idea is to have the silos as tightly themed as possible so that a person reading the article on black cats, would be interested in reading the other articles that it links to.

    It doesn't really matter whether you use posts or pages. Personally I like to keep all the articles in posts and all the random bits and bobs as pages but that's a personal preference.
    Thanks for your comment ichl13. So if I have let's say 10 pages in one silo:

    black cats \
    white cats |
    red cats /
    blue cats /
    grey cats /

    Let concentrate on the "Red Cats" page. Using the above example, can I just have the "white cats" & "blue cats" links on the "Red Cats" page? Or do I have to have all the links to all the other pages within the silo on the "Red Cats" page?

    Thanks.
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    • Profile picture of the author JoshMcNary
      I think interlinking between pages isn't necessary for every page, it's really up to you. If you have 4 relevant articles to the one you're working on though, you should certainly link to them for increased pageviews and user experience.
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  • Profile picture of the author ilee
    The general idea is to link everything in the silo together. Chances are, if you don't want to link some of the articles in a silo to others in the same silo, your silo theme isn't tight enough.
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    • Profile picture of the author bigcat1967
      Great! That's what I needed to know!

      Wish me luck in my long haul of posting all this info.
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  • Profile picture of the author Curtis2011
    With such a huge website, you might end up laying out the pages into a more complex silo, with maybe 4-5 levels instead of just 3.

    Regardless, I searched online and found a correct diagram of the SILO structure:



    The home page is focused only on your primary keyword, the main section pages typically should be linked to by your navbar from every page on your website, and the Tier 3 pages at the bottom will only be linked to from the relevant Tier 2 pages, as well as being linked to by your site map (which should link to everything).

    Since your website will be huge, you definitely need to think of a good page layout and navigation system that can include links to your vast number of main section pages without filling the entire page with a navbar.

    Also, if you don't mind my asking: where the hell did you get 10,000 pages of content? I assume they are auto-spun by a content-gathering program or something? :confused:
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  • Profile picture of the author bigcat1967
    Also, if you don't mind my asking: where the hell did you get 10,000 pages of content? I assume they are auto-spun by a content-gathering program or something?
    No - everything is unique. Actually, it's a friend I work with. For the last 12 - 15 years, he's been writing on one particular subject. It has never been on the web before. This subject probably has about 4 or 5 categories.
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  • Profile picture of the author deezn
    I'm facing a similar dilemna. One of my silos has 100 articles (written by me). If every silo page and every supporting page, all have 100 (and growing) links, at what point does it become kind of ridiculous looking?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by deezn View Post

      I'm facing a similar dilemna. One of my silos has 100 articles (written by me). If every silo page and every supporting page, all have 100 (and growing) links, at what point does it become kind of ridiculous looking?
      If the links/site is setup in a logical order it would never look ridiculous, doesn't matter how many pages you have. Amazons dynamic left sidebar doesn't look ridiculous & they have 244,000,000 indexed pages. When I'm on Amazon & looking at Dewalt power drills, I don't expect to see links to Hello Kitty toys in the left sidebar, that wouldn't make any sense.

      Think of each individual Category as a mini-site, add all the Categories (mini-sites) together & the site as a whole gets stronger & stronger as you target new subjects of the same niche.
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