Silo Arcitecture Linking Question

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  • SEO
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I think I have the silo/theme idea down pretty well, but there's one question I have that hasn't isn't clear about exactly what links to what.

So for example.....

I have parent page called "Stop Dog Barking"

under that there is "Stop Dog Barking in the Crate"
"Stop Dog Barking at Night"
"Stop Dogs Barking at Other Dogs"
"Stop Dog Barking on Walks"
"Stop Dog Barking When Left Alone"

1. Should every page in the silo have a link to ALL the other pages in the silo?

So.. "Stop Dog Barking" would link to all the others?

All the others link back to "Stop Dog Barking"?

Each page links to every other page in the silo?

Essentially each page in this example silo structure would have a total of 6 links?

Please let me know if I have this right!

Thanks!
#arcitecture #linking #question #silo #structure #works
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by wm42150 View Post

    I think I have the silo/theme idea down pretty well, but there's one question I have that hasn't isn't clear about exactly what links to what.

    So for example.....

    I have parent page called "Stop Dog Barking"

    under that there is "Stop Dog Barking in the Crate"
    "Stop Dog Barking at Night"
    "Stop Dogs Barking at Other Dogs"
    "Stop Dog Barking on Walks"
    "Stop Dog Barking When Left Alone"

    1. Should every page in the silo have a link to ALL the other pages in the silo?

    So.. "Stop Dog Barking" would link to all the others?

    All the others link back to "Stop Dog Barking"?

    Each page links to every other page in the silo?

    Essentially each page in this example silo structure would have a total of 6 links?

    Please let me know if I have this right!

    Thanks!
    Yes link to the other pages in the silo, on each of the individual silo pages.

    The reason I'm saying yes is, you'll stand a better chance at getting multiple listings in the SERPs for your keywords.

    Two or three links in the SERPs for your keyword is a heck of a lot better than a single link for the same keyword.

    You don't want a bunch of unrelated junk on any of the pages in the silo, things like latest post, etc... Keep the silo theme tight.

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  • Profile picture of the author outwest
    Good Chart Yukon
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    Tech article writing .Native English Speaker(with Proof)
    specializing in SmartPhones , Internet security, high tech gadgets, search engines, tech shows, digital cameras.

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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by outwest View Post

      Good Chart Yukon
      Thanks, that's yed graph editor in action.

      That software kicks @ss when making graphs, I use it all the time to map out my sites, just makes on-page seo easier when you start out with a plan.

      The software is free btw.
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      • Profile picture of the author wm42150
        Yukon,

        Awesome, very helpful of you. It's funny, I read a bunch of info on siloing on different SEO blogs and they all seem to make everything super clear except that. I hope this helps others who are a little fuzzy in siloing.

        So....I'm probably kicking a dead horse here but to be super clear....only the silo parent page is linked to from the main index, and then a link back to main index from the parent? I guess the idea is that all link juice from the main index will flow into the child pages through the parent page?

        Also, I should make sure no links are pointed back to the main index from the child pages?

        Thanks again!
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        • Profile picture of the author yukon
          Banned
          Originally Posted by wm42150 View Post

          Yukon,

          Awesome, very helpful of you. It's funny, I read a bunch of info on siloing on different SEO blogs and they all seem to make everything super clear except that. I hope this helps others who are a little fuzzy in siloing.

          So....I'm probably kicking a dead horse here but to be super clear....only the silo parent page is linked to from the main index, and then a link back to main index from the parent? I guess the idea is that all link juice from the main index will flow into the child pages through the parent page?

          Also, I should make sure no links are pointed back to the main index from the child pages?

          Thanks again!
          Yes, the green silo landing page is an authority page all by itself.

          You want the green landing page to act as an authority buffer between silo supporting pages & the Index page. This will help later on (see double/triple SERP listings below). The goal is to rank the green landing pages for each individual keyword, it doesn't matter If the Index page ranks or not, chances are it will still rank for a variety of themed keywords.

          The green landing pages support the Index page. When you start creating multiple silos all themed on the root keyword (dog), then 10+ silos later, you have some serious authority on the subject (dog).

          Think of each silo as it's own micro site, the green silo landing pages would represent a micro sites Index page, while keeping each individual silo landing page 100% on the subject (dog).

          It doesn't matter If you have 1 silo or 1,000 silos on the same site/domain, they still need to focus on the root keyword (dog). A focused site like this builds authority pretty quick.

          There is no fixed number for supporting pages, however I try to keep at least 10 supporting pages in each individual silo as a minimum & really that all depends on competition.

          If the #1 competition in the SERPs has 15 internal pages with my target keyword in their page titles:

          ( intitle:"keyword" site:domain.com )

          Ill defiantly try & build more pages in that silo than they have for their entire site, maybe even double that number of supporting pages to 30 pages in a single silo. Something like 30 pages would be an above average competition that your trying to out rank in the SERPs.

          Obviously I'm not going to build 1,000 supporting pages in a single silo, unless that keyword was bringing in some serious money at the top of the SERPs (position 1,2,3 in the SERPs).

          Again, I start with 10 supporting pages, build my external backlinks, then let the SERPs settle down & see what needs to be done next (more supporting page, more backlinks, both?).

          Expanding a silo site is pretty straight forward, like the screenshot below. Just remember the tighter the group of pages the better off that green landing page will be in the SERPs.





          Then with the tightly grouped silo you start getting into some cool SERP things like double/triple SERP listings for the same exact keyword. It's very cool to own 2 or 3 positions on page #1 in the SERPs, you can sometimes double the traffic for that keyword by planning ahead with the silo structure, & really requires no extra work that you wouldn't already be doing, the difference is the site is very organized compared to an average blog/site.

          Most folks just build a single new blog page then point external backlinks at the Index page or the new internal page, which is totally unorganized & just random posting.

          I think If more webmasters understood what a simple silo can accomplish they would change a lot of what they do as far as seo & content publishing.

          That link I posted to yed graph editor is one of the best things that helps keep me organized with my own silo sites. It's just awesome to be able to plan the site offline in a visual way, before I ever start building the site.
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          • Profile picture of the author James-
            Originally Posted by yukon View Post

            The goal is to rank the green landing pages for each individual keyword, it doesn't matter If the Index page ranks or not,
            Educate me here
            Why would you trying to rank the page 'stop dog jumping' for the term 'stop dog jumping on children'

            Would you not get better SERP results if you ranked the page 'stop dog jumping on children' instead?
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            • Profile picture of the author yukon
              Banned
              Originally Posted by James- View Post

              Educate me here
              Why would you trying to rank the page 'stop dog jumping' for the term 'stop dog jumping on children'

              Would you not get better SERP results if you ranked the page 'stop dog jumping on children' instead?
              That was only an example of silo supporting page titles, I did zero research on the subject. I was pointing out site structure, only.

              Notice the last supporting page title "Stop Dog Jumping on the Mail Man", lol.

              Again, I was adding to the OPs subject without doing keyword research, I needed page titles to fill the supporting page titles in the 2nd silo.

              Keyword research is optional & billed at $57 an hour.
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              • Profile picture of the author James-
                Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                That was only an example of silo supporting page titles, I did zero research on the subject. I was pointing out site structure, only.

                Notice the last supporting page title "Stop Dog Jumping on the Mail Man", lol.

                Again, I was adding to the OPs subject without doing keyword research, I needed page titles to fill the supporting page titles in the 2nd silo.

                Keyword research is optional & billed at $57 an hour.
                Haha, yea i know you were making up the keywords to explain the structure of the site/silos. But my query still remains if say all those keywords were real.

                Would you still want to rank that 'green' main category page for all the keywords within the silo for optimum rankings for those keywords or would you target the keyword pages themselves. I would have assumed the latter, do you know?

                Thanks so far.
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                • Profile picture of the author yukon
                  Banned
                  Originally Posted by James- View Post

                  Haha, yea i know you were making up the keywords to explain the structure of the site/silos. But my query still remains if say all those keywords were real.

                  Would you still want to rank that 'green' main category page for all the keywords within the silo for optimum rankings for those keywords or would you target the keyword pages themselves. I would have assumed the latter, do you know?

                  Thanks so far.
                  No the green landing page has it's own root keyword for that silo, so it's pretty much targeting a single keyword. That's not to say the landing page won't pick up additional long tail traffic, because it will. Most web pages pick up extra longtail keywords without even trying.

                  I answered to something similar in one of my post above (I think ). Individual supporting pages will also rank on their own, the thing is they are all so tightly grouped/linked in the silo, they bring additional authorty to the SERPs, unlike a random single page on a regular old blog trying to rank all by it's lonesome.

                  When I have a new keyword I create a new page. If it's a root keyword I create a landing page. If it's a sub-keyword I create a supporting page below the landing page keyword.
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                  • Profile picture of the author packerfan
                    Awesome thread!

                    Quick question.

                    Let's assume I have a category for Digital Camera Reviews with 10 supporting pages. Each supporting page is a review of a specific camera. How do I structure the site if I also want to rank those 10 supporting pages?

                    If I have an authority site I might have the following categories...

                    Digital Camera Reviews
                    Digital Camera Rumors
                    Digital Camera News
                    Digital Photography Tutorials
                    Advanced Digital Photography

                    So it seems it would a terrible user experience to have each review as it's own category. On the same hand, it kind of defeats the purpose of the whole silo thing if I build 10 supporting pages for each of the "main" supporting pages for digital camera reviews.

                    Hope that question makes sense.
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                    • Profile picture of the author yukon
                      Banned
                      Originally Posted by packerfan View Post

                      Awesome thread!

                      Quick question.

                      Let's assume I have a category for Digital Camera Reviews with 10 supporting pages. Each supporting page is a review of a specific camera. How do I structure the site if I also want to rank those 10 supporting pages?

                      If I have an authority site I might have the following categories...

                      Digital Camera Reviews
                      Digital Camera Rumors
                      Digital Camera News
                      Digital Photography Tutorials
                      Advanced Digital Photography

                      So it seems it would a terrible user experience to have each review as it's own category. On the same hand, it kind of defeats the purpose of the whole silo thing if I build 10 supporting pages for each of the "main" supporting pages for digital camera reviews.

                      Hope that question makes sense.
                      For a larger site like that you would need to add a sub-category as a landing page per camera review silo.

                      I would be careful about nesting to deep on the sub-categories, you don't want URLs a mile long.

                      Still something like below (screenshot) would be ok, I wouldn't push it much further.



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                      • Profile picture of the author gohardorgohome
                        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                        For a larger site like that you would need to add a sub-category as a landing page per camera review silo.

                        I would be careful about nesting to deep on the sub-categories, you don't want URLs a mile long.

                        Still something like below (screenshot) would be ok, I wouldn't push it much further.
                        Yukon, this is pretty much the same question/problem I'm running into.

                        I'm building a site very similar to the layout of this site: healthyhearing.com

                        EDIT: I just tried setting up a site and here's what I did (as an example like healthyhearing.com):

                        Parent Category: Hearing Loss
                        Child Category: Causes
                        Post Name: Can vitamins cause hearing loss?

                        So, here's the URL Structure:

                        For the hearing loss category: mysite.com/hearing-loss
                        For the causes category: mysite.com/hearing-loss/causes
                        For the post: mysite.com/can-vitamins-cause-hearing-loss

                        Is that the right URL structure?

                        Also, where should my links on my post point to? Does every single post point to each corresponding child AND parent category AND other posts? Or is it enough to just make sure you link within the silo?
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          • Profile picture of the author mraffiliate
            Originally Posted by yukon View Post

            Yes, the green silo landing page is an authority page all by itself.

            You want the green landing page to act as an authority buffer between silo supporting pages & the Index page. This will help later on (see double/triple SERP listings below). The goal is to rank the green landing pages for each individual keyword, it doesn't matter If the Index page ranks or not, chances are it will still rank for a variety of themed keywords.

            The green landing pages support the Index page. When you start creating multiple silos all themed on the root keyword (dog), then 10+ silos later, you have some serious authority on the subject (dog).

            Think of each silo as it's own micro site, the green silo landing pages would represent a micro sites Index page, while keeping each individual silo landing page 100% on the subject (dog).

            It doesn't matter If you have 1 silo or 1,000 silos on the same site/domain, they still need to focus on the root keyword (dog). A focused site like this builds authority pretty quick.

            There is no fixed number for supporting pages, however I try to keep at least 10 supporting pages in each individual silo as a minimum & really that all depends on competition.

            If the #1 competition in the SERPs has 15 internal pages with my target keyword in their page titles:

            ( intitle:"keyword" site:domain.com )

            Ill defiantly try & build more pages in that silo than they have for their entire site, maybe even double that number of supporting pages to 30 pages in a single silo. Something like 30 pages would be an above average competition that your trying to out rank in the SERPs.

            Obviously I'm not going to build 1,000 supporting pages in a single silo, unless that keyword was bringing in some serious money at the top of the SERPs (position 1,2,3 in the SERPs).

            Again, I start with 10 supporting pages, build my external backlinks, then let the SERPs settle down & see what needs to be done next (more supporting page, more backlinks, both?).

            Expanding a silo site is pretty straight forward, like the screenshot below. Just remember the tighter the group of pages the better off that green landing page will be in the SERPs.





            Then with the tightly grouped silo you start getting into some cool SERP things like double/triple SERP listings for the same exact keyword. It's very cool to own 2 or 3 positions on page #1 in the SERPs, you can sometimes double the traffic for that keyword by planning ahead with the silo structure, & really requires no extra work that you wouldn't already be doing, the difference is the site is very organized compared to an average blog/site.

            Most folks just build a single new blog page then point external backlinks at the Index page or the new internal page, which is totally unorganized & just random posting.

            I think If more webmasters understood what a simple silo can accomplish they would change a lot of what they do as far as seo & content publishing.

            That link I posted to yed graph editor is one of the best things that helps keep me organized with my own silo sites. It's just awesome to be able to plan the site offline in a visual way, before I ever start building the site.
            Yukon,
            I have learned a lot from your posts. I really appreciate it. Do you have a WSO on this subject matter or course?

            Also, do you think the Silo site structure is still valid even after all the Google algo changes that have recently taken place?
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        • Profile picture of the author discustipated
          Originally Posted by wm42150 View Post

          Yukon,

          Awesome, very helpful of you. It's funny, I read a bunch of info on siloing on different SEO blogs and they all seem to make everything super clear except that. I hope this helps others who are a little fuzzy in siloing.

          So....I'm probably kicking a dead horse here but to be super clear....only the silo parent page is linked to from the main index, and then a link back to main index from the parent? I guess the idea is that all link juice from the main index will flow into the child pages through the parent page?

          Also, I should make sure no links are pointed back to the main index from the child pages?

          Thanks again!
          It helped me. Thanks yukon. I havs the same questions.
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  • Profile picture of the author capone2009
    nice, i did not know that the articles have to link back to the category
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  • Profile picture of the author outwest
    Silo structure is not difficult to understand
    what is difficult is programming wordpress to do that

    the default structure of wordpress completely screws up Silo Structure
    most plugins that work, (I have only seen a few) are expensive

    I currently use
    Clickbump which can easily be structured for Silo
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    specializing in SmartPhones , Internet security, high tech gadgets, search engines, tech shows, digital cameras.

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  • Profile picture of the author wm42150
    Yukon, you're amazing! VERY good insight into this.....

    One last question --

    Where is the best place to insert links on a page when siloing? I'm asking because sometimes it may not look natural to readers with a bunch of links stuffed in the main body content.

    What about anchor text?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by wm42150 View Post

      Yukon, you're amazing! VERY good insight into this.....

      One last question --

      Where is the best place to insert links on a page when siloing? I'm asking because sometimes it may not look natural to readers with a bunch of links stuffed in the main body content.

      What about anchor text?
      Thanks,

      You have a few options for the location of the links on the pages:
      • Links in sidebar
      • Links in content
      • Links below content (recommended/related post)
      • Links in CSS3

      Links in the sidebar are ok, the catch is getting WP (Wordpress) to only display a list of links in a single category of the page your currently viewing. That might not sound like a big deal, but that's what controls your silo from leaking out in random directions.

      Links in content are ok, like you mentioned your not going to want 30 supporting page anchor-text URLs spread out over a 500 word article, that would be horrible as a user experience.

      Links below content as related post would be ok, with maybe 10 or less anchor-text links.

      Links in CSS3 is a very good option that will allow you to do simple things like tabs. Each tab can hold a large number of links for example you might have 30 supporting pages (just an example), then you could do something like this in CSS3 code:

      CSS3 Tab Demo here, notice the 2 tabs, more importantly notice the 2nd tab that has hidden content until you mouseover the 2nd tab title.

      Now notice how both CSS3 tabs show all the tab content inside the Google Cache here.


      User Freindly Web Page








      Google Cache CSS3 Tab - SEO Links





      Bottom line is everything needs to be user friendly & also perform well in seo.

      [edit]
      None of the text in the screen shots above matter, what's important in the CSS3 tabs is the ability to add links in a user friendly way & seo at the same time. Those links in the 2nd tab are all on the same page as your content will be, per individual page. The tabs don't pull data/links from a remote page, they pass authority as If the CSS3 tabs didn't exist.
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  • Profile picture of the author brittlesnc
    Yukon,

    Is the minimum amount of supporting pages you do for a landing page usually going to be 10? Even if you're trying to target 30+ keyword phrases in a niche?

    Or if you're targeting 30+ keyword phrases, will some of the supporting pages be targeting some of those keyword phrases?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by brittlesnc View Post

      Yukon,

      Is the minimum amount of supporting pages you do for a landing page usually going to be 10? Even if you're trying to target 30+ keyword phrases in a niche?

      Or if you're targeting 30+ keyword phrases, will some of the supporting pages be targeting some of those keyword phrases?
      That number (10) is not set in stone, that's why I said before, it all depends on how tough the competition is for the keyword in the SERPs.

      Ten supporting pages is what I try to start out with only because I'm not sure what's going to happen in the SERPs before I ever build the first page in the silo.

      If your going to a fight (SERP competition) might as well come out swinging.

      Also look at it like this, even If you could get by with creating 5 supporting pages & those 5 supporting pages along with a few external backlinks put your page at the #1 SERP position, there will be a day when new players step up & try to take that #1 SERP position away from you. Your 10 supporting pages just creates more work for the competition, they might see your serious & walk away from the keyword. A lot of people in IM are lazy, take advantage of that & build a solid tightly themed group of supporting pages to help hold your SERP position.

      My point here is, get ranked, then top it off with a little extra work (supporting pages, quality external links), think long term, a little work now creates less work later.

      Keep in mind it's all about the competition, If some webmaster is ranking #1 in the SERPs for a very profitable keyword, I guarantee they will be watching everyone on page #1 & probably page #2 in the SERPs to see If anyone is moving up the SERP ladder fast. Nobody wants to lose a #1 SERP position, especially If it's very profitable for them. The competition will keep their guard up, they would be crazy If they didn't. Make them nervous with some authority.
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  • Profile picture of the author outwest
    Yukon,
    Your 10 supporting page for the Silo Landing page, Those are kw optimized Onpage SEO? For the kw they are targeting? or no

    Btw I bookmarked this thread
    Its not easy to find Silo structure logically explained, believe me I have tried

    Basically the way I understand it the Silo Landing Pages are just categories, (or they can be viewed or structured this way) but the supporting pages should only link to the main Silo landing page, and not out of the Silo. But they can also link to each other right? as long as they dont break the silo with their links? That is how Clickbump does it

    Each category (silo landing page) . each supporting page within the silo has a list of the other supporting posts within the silo, and also links back to the main Silo landing page, but NOT to any other posts outside of that Silo

    I know the supporting pages link back to the main silo landing page
    However I am not sure. Do they also link back to the Root Domain page? or should they, I should ask
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by outwest View Post

      Yukon,
      Your 10 supporting page for the Silo Landing page, Those are kw optimized Onpage SEO? For the kw they are targeting? or no

      Btw I bookmarked this thread
      Its not easy to find Silo structure logically explained, believe me I have tried

      Basically the way I understand it the Silo Landing Pages are just categories, (or they can be viewed or structured this way) but the supporting pages should only link to the main Silo landing page, and not out of the Silo. But they can also link to each other right? as long as they dont break the silo with their links? That is how Clickbump does it

      Each category (silo landing page) . each supporting page within the silo has a list of the other supporting posts within the silo, and also links back to the main Silo landing page, but NOT to any other posts outside of that Silo

      I know the supporting pages link back to the main silo landing page
      However I am not sure. Do they also link back to the Root Domain page? or should they, I should ask
      Yes, those Silo landing pages are your target pages to be ranked. The supporting pages will still rank on their own for longtail keywords (extra traffic/$$). A lot of times you can get those supporting pages to show for the same keyword (double/triple SERP listing depending on competition) with little effort other than they are all themed keyword pages & tightly grouped (silo).

      When your setting up WP themes the Category page template is pretty much the easier route to take for the silo landing page IMO. Remember that WP-Category page is a web page just like any other web page on the net, it's up to everyone what they do with it (how they display content, links, etc...).

      Yes, keep all the links contained in the individual silo. If you need to link to page XYZ, chances are page XYZ should have been in the same silo to begin with, why link to unrelated pages (other silos)?

      Obviously having a link on every single page back to the Index page is a good user experience, there are ways to mask that link & only make it available for human traffic to control link flow.

      Example, the nets most popular font site (here) has a large number of links only available to human traffic. Notice on most pages at dafont, they have a lot of category anchor-text links in the header of each page.

      Then check the Google Cache (text version), those links don't exist (all the links in the red box + ABC... links). That example is controlled by javascript.

      They controlled the links & at the same time created a good user experience.

      Just in case anyone doesn't already know, dafont is the most popular font site on the net & ranks #1 in the SERPs for the keyword font.
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  • Profile picture of the author outwest
    Thanks Yukon.
    I would assume that for making those internal backlinking sites to support each main silo landing page, there really is no time constraint, in other words you could add 10,20, 30 a day no problem . (I hope)
    thanks again for all The Silo tips

    I think most board members just pass right by threads like these, not realizing what they are missing as far as backlink power

    btw Yukon, what is your take on the relative importance of Silo backlinks
    as opposed to external backlinks to the Silo landing page? Are the internal silo links more important?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by outwest View Post

      Thanks Yukon.
      I would assume that for making those internal backlinking sites to support each main silo landing page, there really is no time constraint, in other words you could add 10,20, 30 a day no problem . (I hope)
      thanks again for all The Silo tips

      I think most board members just pass right by threads like these, not realizing what they are missing as far as backlink power

      btw Yukon, what is your take on the relative importance of Silo backlinks
      as opposed to external backlinks to the Silo landing page? Are the internal silo links more important?
      Exactly, no time constraints on any of this.

      That's what I like about silos & mapping out my site structure with yed editor. Things happen all the time that can throw a wrench in your work flow (creating supporting pages, landing pages, external backlinks, etc...), we all have offline lives to work into our schedules (family, etc...).

      With silos & yed editor I can create a plan/map of exactly what I need to do today & in the future. So If I have an offline emergancy to deal with & I can't get back to my online work in a week or so, it doesn't matter, I have my yed graph that will visually show me exactly what I need to do. It's also easy to expand in the future.

      IMO, it all brings order to the IM chaos.

      As far as internal/external backlinks, they both are equal, you need both IMO to let Google know that very related pages link in/out of the silo. Google loves the whole themed keyword thing, you can see that in action on the SERPs (related search phrases).
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    • Profile picture of the author Noirmaybe
      Would this be possible/profitable or even work for CPA ?
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Noirmaybe View Post

        Would this be possible/profitable or even work for CPA ?
        Absolutely, you can monetize this with CPA offers!

        How you monetize any page in a silo is 100% up to each individual.

        Silos are all about delivering traffic from the SERPs & at the same time being user friendly.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alex Barboza
    Hi Yukon. Your answers are always very detailed and easy to understand. Btw. do you have Google Alerts set for the keywords "silo structure"?

    I am building a website following these principles and I have links to my homepage in each and every post in the website. I just use a keyword rich anchor text instead of "Home". Do you think I should make those links nofollow? I thought it was a good idea to have my main keyword linking to the root domain always as it would increase my internal linking power. Maybe I am wrong.

    Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Alex Barboza View Post

      Hi Yukon. Your answers are always very detailed and easy to understand. Btw. do you have Google Alerts set for the keywords "silo structure"?

      I am building a website following these principles and I have links to my homepage in each and every post in the website. I just use a keyword rich anchor text instead of "Home". Do you think I should make those links nofollow? I thought it was a good idea to have my main keyword linking to the root domain always as it would increase my internal linking power. Maybe I am wrong.

      Thanks
      Thanks Alex,

      No I don't have Google alerts setup for "silo structure".

      Is the link pointing at the Index page inside an article, or is it in the header or footer of the page?

      If you are only targeting a single keyword I don't see anything wrong with it. If you decide to expand & create more targeted keyword landing pages I would reconsider how you handle global links. For example a privacy policy link on every single page can be wrapped in an iframe in the footer. The traffic will see the link as a normal hyperlink, Google will not count the link as diluting the page, you can verify that iframe comment on a Google Cache text only page, the content of the iframe won't show on the cache page.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alex Barboza
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        Is the link pointing at the Index page inside an article, or is it in the header or footer of the page?
        The links are breadcrumbs above posts not inside the content. The links are like this:

        Main Keyword for home page > Keyword for category page > article
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        • Profile picture of the author yukon
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Alex Barboza View Post

          The links are breadcrumbs above posts not inside the content. The links are like this:

          Main Keyword for home page > Keyword for category page > article
          Ok, I see what your saying now.

          I use breadcrumbs on my own sites/pages, it's just easy to do & gets you extra links in the SERPs almost guaranteed, plus it only takes a few min. to setup.

          To be honest for now I wouldn't worry much about that Index page link, in the breadcrumb. If you look at any breadcrumbs in the SERPs, you'll notice Google doesn't even use a hyperlink on the Index page text in the breadcrumb, it's just plain text. The following text after the Index page text are clickable hyperlinks.

          It's hard to give a general rule of thumb on something like that when there are thousands of WP themes everyone is running. That's pretty much the reason I'm working on a new theme that will demonstrate everything I've been talking about as far as silos go.

          If you followed my old thread http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...umb-trick.html then your probably running the default WP-Breadcrumb php code, which is ok. After I finish this new theme I'll try & update that old thread with the same breadcrumb php code that I'll be running in the new theme.
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          • Profile picture of the author kromos01
            Originally Posted by yukon View Post

            If you followed my old thread then your probably running the default WP-Breadcrumb php code, which is ok. After I finish this new theme I'll try & update that old thread with the same breadcrumb php code that I'll be running in the new theme.
            I'm sorry for bumping this old response Yukon, but I have to ask (to everyone!) ; Could breadcrumbs affect on a Silo relevance? By linking each post to my index page (for a Index page > Category Page > Post page structure), Am I not losing link juice? (I read what you said about not worrying about that index page link since it's only plain text, but that's only for a SERP because the site is still showing the link like WF breadcrumbs). Do I have to make that link nofollow? or just leave it how it is because it works on its own way (i don't know )?

            And finally, what do you think is the best way to link from a post page to a category page and from a category page to my index page (just for serps)?

            Thank you very much for your help (and sorry if there is any bad grammar )
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  • Profile picture of the author brittlesnc
    Yukon,

    Can't wait for your 'Wordpress Silo' to be ready but hopefully it comes with a detailed explanation of how to set one up and other detailed info because some of the info you're posting about silos is going over my head...

    iframes in footers, using javascript/masking links for link flow, etc.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by brittlesnc View Post

      Yukon,

      Can't wait for your 'Wordpress Silo' to be ready but hopefully it comes with a detailed explanation of how to set one up and other detailed info because some of the info you're posting about silos is going over my head...

      iframes in footers, using javascript/masking links for link flow, etc.
      Hey brittlesnc,

      Sorry about that, sometimes I get carried away & start rattling off about stuff assuming everyone has already done these things.

      Sometimes I'll be talking about IM things to my wife, I'll be steady talking & look up & she'll have that look "What in the world are you talking about?" lol.

      To answer your question, yes, I'll include details on masking links. Thanks for pointing that out.
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  • Profile picture of the author outwest
    Yukon, thanks all the tips
    If I have asked this question before, apologies

    lets say you find a kw with VERY low competition, the top 2 sites on google have less than 10 backlinks, maybe even 5 or less

    Now, if it were you , would you risk having too many top rated pages? if you lets say put a silo landing page supported by 10 articles? Wouldnt each of those theoretically rank? and since there are so few backlinks for the top 5 sites, wouldnt that look spammy to rank so many pages (assuming that happened)

    Of course I guess that
    all the backlinks coming from OUTSIDE the site would only be pointed at the Silo landing page, so that page would probably be the first to rank, but. all this is new to me.

    I have a bunch of kws that < I am not joking the top 3 sites have less than 10 backlinks, so thats why I am thinking hmm does the silo need that many supporting pages
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by outwest View Post

      Yukon, thanks all the tips
      If I have asked this question before, apologies

      lets say you find a kw with VERY low competition, the top 2 sites on google have less than 10 backlinks, maybe even 5 or less

      Now, if it were you , would you risk having too many top rated pages? if you lets say put a silo landing page supported by 10 articles? Wouldnt each of those theoretically rank? and since there are so few backlinks for the top 5 sites, wouldnt that look spammy to rank so many pages (assuming that happened)

      Of course I guess that
      all the backlinks coming from OUTSIDE the site would only be pointed at the Silo landing page, so that page would probably be the first to rank, but. all this is new to me.

      I have a bunch of kws that < I am not joking the top 3 sites have less than 10 backlinks, so thats why I am thinking hmm does the silo need that many supporting pages
      I'm not sure I follow that first question (risk to many ranked pages).

      The landing page is the target page to rank for your best keyword in that silo. By best I mean best targeted traffic for that silo root keyword, example, stop dog barking. Targeted traffic equals more money in your pocket at the end of the day.

      Yes, the supporting pages will also rank on their own in two ways. The supporting pages a lot of times (especially on very low competition keywords) create double/triple SERP listings below the silo landing page in the SERPs for the landing page keyword. That's just a huge bonus (extra traffic) & you know for a fact that keyword has reached real authority in the SERPs.

      Google doesn't hand out double/triple SERP listings for a single keyword to just any old site. Google allows double/triple SERP listings when they find a site that has multiple interlinked 100% related web pages that are very focused on the keyword. That also depends on competition, you won't see everyone on the first page with double/triple listings, it's just not going to happen.

      The second way the supporting pages rank are individually per longtail keywords, you'll defiantly pick up traffic with each individual page in the silo, both landing page & supporting pages. So don't think that the supporting pages won't bring in extra traffic, because they will. Also, those supporting pages need to be very focused on the landing page keyword but not in a spammy way, you want to pick up the longtail traffic, so stay on topic with related keywords.

      Don't think of supporting pages as just work, look at them as free traffic.

      Backlinks, don't only build backlinks pointing at the landing page, that's not a good idea. Every single page in the silo needs external backlinks pointing at them.

      Don't panic...

      My rule of thumb is to split 50/50 on the external backlinks, that's just a rough estimate, don't start counting links. Example, I'll point roughly 50% of the backlinks at the silo landing page & the other 50% divided between the silo supporting pages.

      Keep in mind you need to track every single pages traffic (Google Analytics, etc...), If you see a supporting page pulling in a lot of SERP traffic for a longtail keyword, that's your signal to reevaluate that longtail keyword & take action to keep that page at the top of the SERPs for that longtail keyword.

      Supporting pages are good for several reasons, I've already listed two. Another good thing about supporting pages is like I mentioned above. You can use supporting pages in your silo to fish for related traffic in the SERPs & support a silo landing page at the same time.

      My suggestion is, If you know the keyword is very very low competition then build at least 5 supporting pages, get the landing page ranked #1 in the SERPs. If that #1 SERP position over delivers on traffic for what you expected then bulk up on additional supporting pages & external backlinks (50/50). Make that landing page rock solid in the SERPs so it doesn't drop so easy when new competition starts targeting the keyword, because it will happen sooner or later.
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  • Profile picture of the author finne
    If there is a semantic connection between one silo subpage and the subpage from another silo should you link them? Logic says yes cause if its related link it.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by finne View Post

      If there is a semantic connection between one silo subpage and the subpage from another silo should you link them? Logic says yes cause if its related link it.
      Yes logic says link If it's related, If it's 100% related it should be in the same silo.

      If you absolutely need to cross link into another silo, I would link to that 2nd silos landing page only. That 2nd silo is your strongest authority page in the silo. You don't want to mix silo supporting pages with each other, then you start creating chaos within each silo & diluting everything (like a regular blog ).
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  • Profile picture of the author outwest
    Yukon, Thanks I thought I had a rudimentary Understanding of Silos and I guess I did, but after your tutoring lessons in this thread I have a much more detailed understanding of some critical issues I was not yet clear on. I have a lot to learn, but without threads like this , it would take me tons more trial and error, Thanks friend for taking the time to post on this thread, I sure appreciate it
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  • Profile picture of the author James-
    Hi Yukon,

    Just come back to this thread, you really have been the hero of this one!
    Continuing what has been said with the structure, what permalinks do you suggest we use?

    /%category%/%postname%/ - would seem to be the obvious setting here.
    But thinking about it i have the following issue, that 'green' (parent silo) landing page would result in the URL:
    http://domain.com/category/stop-dog-barking.

    Now to me, that looks rubbish from a user experience, no one wants to see 'category'
    I know we can get rid of this by just using the /%postname%/ permainks, but then for all the silo's sub pages you will not have the parent page within the URL.

    How do you do your authority sites?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by James- View Post

      Hi Yukon,

      Just come back to this thread, you really have been the hero of this one!
      Continuing what has been said with the structure, what permalinks do you suggest we use?

      /%category%/%postname%/ - would seem to be the obvious setting here.
      But thinking about it i have the following issue, that 'green' (parent silo) landing page would result in the URL:
      http://domain.com/category/stop-dog-barking.

      Now to me, that looks rubbish from a user experience, no one wants to see 'category'
      I know we can get rid of this by just using the /%postname%/ permainks, but then for all the silo's sub pages you will not have the parent page within the URL.

      How do you do your authority sites?


      I use a plugin that removes the default .../category/... from the URL.

      WordPress › WP No Category Base « WordPress Plugins

      Install the plugin & it will fix that problem.

      [note]
      Be very careful when tweaking URLs for any page that is already ranked in the SERPs.

      If you use this on an existing older site that has ranked pages in the SERPs, you will need to 301 redirect the old URL to the new URL.

      If it's a new site with no ranked pages you don't need to worry about any 301 redirects.
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  • Profile picture of the author James-
    Yukon, that's exactly what i need, thank you so much!
    FYI, it's for a new site i plan to build

    Reallly appreciate the time you have given on this topic.
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  • Profile picture of the author kkchoon
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    Powerful Indexer That Makes Your Backlinks Count ==> Nuclear Link Indexer

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  • Profile picture of the author onepace
    Yukon -

    If you're linking your posts back to a category page I'm assuming you don't no index category or tag pages?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by onepace View Post

      Yukon -

      If you're linking your posts back to a category page I'm assuming you don't no index category or tag pages?
      No, I don't NOINDEX Category pages.

      If your creating a silo theme, I would make the typical WP-Tag hyperlink on a blog post either plain text (no hyperlink) & point the tag page directly at the blog post (use the WP-Tag page as a one-way support page), or just skip the WP-Tag page altogether.
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      • Profile picture of the author ebrg
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        No, I don't NOINDEX Category pages.

        If your creating a silo theme, I would make the typical WP-Tag hyperlink on a blog post either plain text (no hyperlink) & point the tag page directly at the blog post (use the WP-Tag page as a one-way support page), or just skip the WP-Tag page altogether.
        Would it be better to just hide the post byline that link to category and tag archive pages? You could then put in a direct link in the content to the landing page and/or to other posts in the silo. There are some themes where it is really easy to hide such bylines.
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        • Profile picture of the author packerfan
          I was having a look around about.com the other day just checking out how their site is structured...

          Obviously I don't plan on having a site that size. But, it's interesting what they seem to do.

          Index Page > Category Page > Subdomain Index Page >Subdomain category page > articles

          So basically they have about.com/cars and nothing in that directory except a link to subdomains about cars. So you click on sports cars and it takes you to...

          sportscars.about.com

          Then click on black sports cars and you go to sportscars.about.com/black sports cars

          Is there an advantage to using subdomains like this? Or does it have to do wtih the size of the site or something?
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by packerfan View Post

            I was having a look around about.com the other day just checking out how their site is structured...

            Obviously I don't plan on having a site that size. But, it's interesting what they seem to do.

            Index Page > Category Page > Subdomain Index Page >Subdomain category page > articles

            So basically they have about.com/cars and nothing in that directory except a link to subdomains about cars. So you click on sports cars and it takes you to...

            sportscars.about.com

            Then click on black sports cars and you go to sportscars.about.com/black sports cars

            Is there an advantage to using subdomains like this? Or does it have to do wtih the size of the site or something?
            Sites that are huge like about.com use sub-domains because they act like seperate sites & I'm sure it's a heck of a lot easier to manage the individual sub-domains than a single large site with hundreds of thousands of pages.

            [example]

            site:cars.about.com

            The links pointing out of each sub-domain act similar to external links when pointing at other sub-domains in the network.
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        • Profile picture of the author yukon
          Banned
          Originally Posted by ebrg View Post

          Would it be better to just hide the post byline that link to category and tag archive pages? You could then put in a direct link in the content to the landing page and/or to other posts in the silo. There are some themes where it is really easy to hide such bylines.
          It all depends on the theme, no two themes are ever the same.

          If your ranking the Category page, leave the link. The Tag link I would remove. You might have to edit the theme source code?
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  • Profile picture of the author ebrg
    Hey Yukon and Kok

    You seem to have a difference in your silo designs: Both designs link back from the supporting page to the landing page, but only one design links from the landing page to the supporting page.

    What are the pros and cons of these two approaches ?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by ebrg View Post

      Hey Yukon and Kok

      You seem to have a difference in your silo designs: Both designs link back from the supporting page to the landing page, but only one design links from the landing page to the supporting page.

      What are the pros and cons of these two approaches ?
      His flow chart is only considering Google SERPs, my flow chart is built for human traffic & the SERPs.

      Why build a site only for the SERPs? If human traffic can't navigate the site they'll bounce.

      The whole point of ranking a page in the SERPs is for human traffic, doesn't serve much purpose If they bounce because they can't find navigation links.
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  • Profile picture of the author James-
    Originally Posted by yukon View Post

    Hi Yukon,

    I am now trying to set up an authority site based on this format, the layout is exactly what I am after. In principle it seemed pretty easy but as always, i have run into unforeseen complications.

    By setting my site up like this, I assume we should be using the permalinks /%category%/%Postname%

    Going by your example, i assume your green landing page for 'stop dog barking' is a category page. By doing this one of the posts within that category will turn out to be like this:
    http://domain.com/stop-dog-barking/s...g-in-the-crate

    ...and that's fine. Exactly as i want it.

    My issue is that for that green landing page you mention, that is the page I would want to rank for the term stop dog barking since i have supporting posts linking to that page etc.

    So we have 5 posts or so, all linking to the green category page which doesn't have a unique post on. It simply has a link to related posts or excerpts.

    What I am trying to achieve is having that green landing page showing as a unique post or page just like the 5 linking to it with the URL: http://domain.com/stop-dog-barking

    How is this possible? For me it is highly important that the green landing page is showing a unique page worth of content, not some pointless category page where it links to posts already showing in my sidebar or to anything else that is already available via another link

    Really have no idea where to go with this one!

    James
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    • Profile picture of the author webjedi
      Of course the good 'ol WF has a great post on this topic.
      I have been educating all about the net and I have two questions with siloing.

      One is that I see different linking structures and I imagine a silo page performing two tasks.. to pass PR up the silo to the silo index page, to pass PR to the main domain index page.

      Now I was not considering having all of the silo member pages linked on every silo page. I was just going to pass like a closed linkwheel down the silo, one linking to the next, and the end silo page linking back to the top.

      I have read that some webmasters link the last silo member to the index of the next silo but that defeats the purpose to me.

      I never thought about all silo pages (in a silo) on each ember page.
      What is your take on this guys?

      I see a silo page as another entry point to the page, so I imagine having each silo member linking to the home page, also passing link juice to the home as well.

      Geeze this is long-winded, my other question I have is where to find your top silo keywords?

      Currently I am using Google KW tool and sorting my exact-local searches. Is Google giving me the related KW or is there a better tool?

      Google contextual also groups them into related batches, but I am wondering what is the best related keyword discovery tool for this purpose?

      WJ
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      • Profile picture of the author authorfriendly
        I found XsitePro useful as it helps with the silo structure, its the main reason I use them for building websites
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      • Profile picture of the author proptiger123
        Thanks for this useful information...Its really very nice...
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        • Profile picture of the author Tim_Hawksworth
          From Yukon
          The only difference is the larger image has additional sub-categories nested below the 1st landing page..I guess I should have drawn the link flow arrows off to the side like I did the 1st image.
          From palpatine
          Looks the same to me. Just a couple more category pages.
          I don't want to be pedantic, but there is a fundamental difference. And isn't the the whole reason for this thread ... to understand how the linking should be done ?

          If we number the supporting pages in the diagrams from 1 to 5 ( top downwards ) then it will be easier to explain what I mean.

          In the first diagram

          ALL supporting pages are linking to and from the Green category page
          and NOT to each other.

          ( or did I miss read it and the ARE linked to each other as well ??? )




          In the Second diagram

          In the second diagram only support page no. 1 links to the green category page.

          The other links appear as follows:

          support page 1 to and from support page 2
          support page 2 to and from support page 3
          support page 3 to and from support page 4
          support page 4 to and from support page 5

          So support page 5 is only linked to support page 4





          Which one is the recommended SILO design ?

          For human navigation purposes additional links would be good - should all the extra navigation links be NOFOLLOW links ?

          Thanks for helping.
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Tim_Hawksworth View Post

            From Yukon


            From palpatine


            I don't want to be pedantic, but there is a fundamental difference. And isn't the the whole reason for this thread ... to understand how the linking should be done ?

            If we number the supporting pages in the diagrams from 1 to 5 ( top downwards ) then in the second diagram only support page no. 1 links to the green category page.

            The other links appear as follows:

            support page 1 to and from support page 2
            support page 2 to and from support page 3
            support page 3 to and from support page 4
            support page 4 to and from support page 5

            So support page 5 is only linked to support page 4


            BUT in the first diagram

            ALL supporting pages are linking to and from the Green category page
            and NOT to each other.

            ( or did I miss read it and the ARE linked to each other as well ??? )

            Which one is the recommended SILO design ?

            For human navigation purposes additional links would be good - should all these navigation links be NOFOLLOW links ?

            Thanks for helping.

            That's all been answered in this thread & probably similar threads.

            Keep it simple, the larger flow chart was for another forum member that asked a question about sub-categories.
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    • Profile picture of the author jurky
      Originally Posted by James- View Post

      Hi Yukon,

      I am now trying to set up an authority site based on this format, the layout is exactly what I am after. In principle it seemed pretty easy but as always, i have run into unforeseen complications.

      By setting my site up like this, I assume we should be using the permalinks /%category%/%Postname%

      Going by your example, i assume your green landing page for 'stop dog barking' is a category page. By doing this one of the posts within that category will turn out to be like this:
      http://domain.com/stop-dog-barking/s...g-in-the-crate

      ...and that's fine. Exactly as i want it.

      My issue is that for that green landing page you mention, that is the page I would want to rank for the term stop dog barking since i have supporting posts linking to that page etc.

      So we have 5 posts or so, all linking to the green category page which doesn't have a unique post on. It simply has a link to related posts or excerpts.

      What I am trying to achieve is having that green landing page showing as a unique post or page just like the 5 linking to it with the URL: http://domain.com/stop-dog-barking

      How is this possible? For me it is highly important that the green landing page is showing a unique page worth of content, not some pointless category page where it links to posts already showing in my sidebar or to anything else that is already available via another link

      Really have no idea where to go with this one!

      James
      Hey there. You need Thesis or Headway themes to do this. You can set the category page as you like (if you want the category page to actually have real unique content on it...to make it look like a post). Clickbump can also do this.
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      Just check out my Google+ profile, that's all :) WHAT? You were expecting some kind of a sales pitch ???

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    • Profile picture of the author mightiest
      Originally Posted by James- View Post

      Hi Yukon,

      I am now trying to set up an authority site based on this format, the layout is exactly what I am after. In principle it seemed pretty easy but as always, i have run into unforeseen complications.

      By setting my site up like this, I assume we should be using the permalinks /%category%/%Postname%

      Going by your example, i assume your green landing page for 'stop dog barking' is a category page. By doing this one of the posts within that category will turn out to be like this:

      ...and that's fine. Exactly as i want it.

      My issue is that for that green landing page you mention, that is the page I would want to rank for the term stop dog barking since i have supporting posts linking to that page etc.

      So we have 5 posts or so, all linking to the green category page which doesn't have a unique post on. It simply has a link to related posts or excerpts.

      What I am trying to achieve is having that green landing page showing as a unique post or page just like the 5 linking to it with the URL:

      How is this possible? For me it is highly important that the green landing page is showing a unique page worth of content, not some pointless category page where it links to posts already showing in my sidebar or to anything else that is already available via another link

      Really have no idea where to go with this one!

      James
      So I did a little bit of digging on this topic and came across two solutions, maybe. The first is a plugin called "category redirect to post or page." I haven't played with it much, but it sounds like a decent idea except that you might wind up with dupe content.

      The second is to modify your category.php file.

      Here's what I did:
      I replaced the code that usually serves up all the posts with code that looks at what category you're requesting and then serves up a specific post instead.

      That got content on the category page, but I didn't have a way to navigate. Turns out there are widgets that will display on posts in the same category as the one you're viewing. Problem solved.

      There are still dupe content problems that I haven't figured out how to get around. First, I can't figure out how to change the permalinks in the theme I'm using. Ideally, I would swap all permalinks to link to whatever page the viewer is currently on. Because I have no categories anymore and because my index page only displays one post, the current page is always the permalink.

      If I can figure out how to do that, I'm 99% of the way there. The only other bug I'm aware of has to do with my main content page. If I place it in its own category, I wind up with an extra navigation link that produces dupe content. If I place it in one of the other categories, the same problem. I bet I can modify the widget to not display that category, which would solve the problem.

      Whether all these mods are smart or stupid, I'm not really sure. Yukon, you're still reading this thread, I'd appreciate any feedback you might have.

      Edit2: Because I don't like sitting around, I set up 301 redirects for each of the permalinks that would cause a problem in my schema (that would be each post that is actually a category). Again, not sure if stupid or smart, but I figure that I can always finish the modificaitons properly and then not need the 301s.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by mightiest View Post

        So I did a little bit of digging on this topic and came across two solutions, maybe. The first is a plugin called "category redirect to post or page." I haven't played with it much, but it sounds like a decent idea except that you might wind up with dupe content.

        The second is to modify your category.php file.

        Here's what I did:
        I replaced the code that usually serves up all the posts with code that looks at what category you're requesting and then serves up a specific post instead.

        That got content on the category page, but I didn't have a way to navigate. Turns out there are widgets that will display on posts in the same category as the one you're viewing. Problem solved.

        There are still dupe content problems that I haven't figured out how to get around. First, I can't figure out how to change the permalinks in the theme I'm using. Ideally, I would swap all permalinks to link to whatever page the viewer is currently on. Because I have no categories anymore and because my index page only displays one post, the current page is always the permalink.

        If I can figure out how to do that, I'm 99% of the way there. The only other bug I'm aware of has to do with my main content page. If I place it in its own category, I wind up with an extra navigation link that produces dupe content. If I place it in one of the other categories, the same problem. I bet I can modify the widget to not display that category, which would solve the problem.

        Whether all these mods are smart or stupid, I'm not really sure. Yukon, you're still reading this thread, I'd appreciate any feedback you might have.

        Edit2: Because I don't like sitting around, I set up 301 redirects for each of the permalinks that would cause a problem in my schema (that would be each post that is actually a category). Again, not sure if stupid or smart, but I figure that I can always finish the modificaitons properly and then not need the 301s.

        You have to be careful getting caught up in so many 301 redirects, or the page could possibly get stuck in an endless loop & never display the page, seriously I've seen it happen before.

        The way I setup my Category page is, I can post a unique article directly from the WP-Category Admin. page, so that saves the trouble of having to do a 301 redirect + I still get the added benefit of a WP-Category Feed If I want to use that.

        What's the base theme your modifying, just curious?
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        • Profile picture of the author mightiest
          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          You have to be careful getting caught up in so many 301 redirects, or the page could possibly get stuck in an endless loop & never display the page, seriously I've seen it happen before.

          The way I setup my Category page is, I can post a unique article directly from the WP-Category Admin. page, so that saves the trouble of having to do a 301 redirect + I still get the added benefit of a WP-Category Feed If I want to use that.

          What's the base theme your modifying, just curious?
          Weaver 2.2.

          I actually fixed most of my redirect problems and I think I can get rid of the last few today. I did it by eliminating the permalinks and by changing how the front page works. Now, the only 301s are the links in the navigation bar which try to link to the actual post permalink, so I redirect them to the category page. I'm either going to fix that by messing with the widget or by changing some stuff in the database.

          I hadn't considered the implications of RSS feeds and stuff, I'll look into it more later.

          When I started looking at category.php, I assumed this would be an easy job. While adding the ability to see posts on a category page has been simple, the implications within Wordpress's linking structure is a lot more complicated than I thought.

          At this point I could probably wrap everything that I've done up into a plugin, though I'm not sure how theme-specific my modifications are.
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  • Profile picture of the author webjedi
    I have built my pages in silo form in last couple days pretty stupid using a SERP ranking #3 site to screw around with .. Now I am researching if I want to make the links in my drop down menu nofollow.

    I am thinking about PR flow here and have each silo flow down and up .. the silo.
    All advice I have seen is every silo page links to every other page in the silo. I am wondering if each silo page should link home.

    I no-followed my home button already but should I nofollow the menu? Seems totally logical to me.

    WJ
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  • Profile picture of the author outwest
    I doubt thesis or headway can do a true silo

    Clickbump? yes they can, . As far as I know though, Clickbump is the ONLY wordpress theme engine capable of this


    its not as simple though as 1,2 3, silo structure. You need to study what a true silo structure is, so that you can ensure you turn off and turn on what needs to be turned off and on. Silo cant be learned in one day. It took me several months to really understand it

    by the way , Yukon is the resident Silo Expert. anyone here who learned it on the board learned it from him
    Signature
    Tech article writing .Native English Speaker(with Proof)
    specializing in SmartPhones , Internet security, high tech gadgets, search engines, tech shows, digital cameras.

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    • Profile picture of the author jurky
      Just a note, I'll be coding a perfect silo-ed (as per Yukon's instructions), SEO-d theme for Blogspot, and I'll share it for free to anyone who joins the WSO project of Packerfan here. I am in no way, shape or form affiliated with him, but when I saw that people can still post honest sales pitches which only promise hard work, I decided to help out (for people that don't have the thesis Theme).
      Signature

      Just check out my Google+ profile, that's all :) WHAT? You were expecting some kind of a sales pitch ???

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    • Profile picture of the author webjedi
      Originally Posted by outwest View Post

      its not as simple though as 1,2 3, silo structure. You need to study what a true silo structure is, so that you can ensure you turn off and turn on what needs to be turned off and on. Silo cant be learned in one day. It took me several months to really understand it
      Disagree it's 1,2,3 no problem sheesh I just never thought of spreading around the pr throughout the silo. I think of it like a linkwheel.

      I suppose having it all linking on all silo'd pages will be fine. I want to leak the PR from each page to the home page, tempting and might do it....
      Signature

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    • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
      Originally Posted by outwest View Post

      I doubt thesis or headway can do a true silo
      I just set up my first authority site using Thesis. Kinda follow a similar structure to what's been described in this thread. You need to play around with custom code a bit, but it's definitely doable and the site looks ****ing awesome! So excited!
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  • Profile picture of the author pspro
    This is a really informative silo linking thread, thank you to all the contributors! One thing that I have not seen covered is what to do with the necessary website pages, the "contact","privacy","disclaimer","TOS"??

    Can anyone share insight on how to handle these pages?

    Obviously they are not related to the silos so they would be breaking the "link leak" rule so what do you do with them? I thought about putting them in their own category/folder/silo (whatever you want to call it) and that makes sense to me but where would the links go for this?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by pspro View Post

      This is a really informative silo linking thread, thank you to all the contributors! One thing that I have not seen covered is what to do with the necessary website pages, the "contact","privacy","disclaimer","TOS"??

      Can anyone share insight on how to handle these pages?

      Obviously they are not related to the silos so they would be breaking the "link leak" rule so what do you do with them? I thought about putting them in their own category/folder/silo (whatever you want to call it) and that makes sense to me but where would the links go for this?
      That's a good question & it totally depends on what your monetizing the site with. For example, If I remember correct the Google pdf for Adsense that was leaked mentioned something about turning on/off javascript, when a manual review was being done.

      Javascript is the best way to control link flow on a page, however I strongly suggest that you don't use javascript to create links to any pages that are required by the Adsense TOS (Privacy Policy page, etc...).

      For pages like the Privacy Policy that are required by the Adsense TOS I would simply do a NOFOLLOW on the link. The NOFOLLOW tag sucks as far as controlling PR leaks, but it's about the best you can do. I would also do a NOINDEX on the actual Privacy Policy page & similar page types.

      I would add those types of pages to a Wordpress Page (not post), since they don't really need a category or a feed for those page types.
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    • Profile picture of the author Griffin
      Originally Posted by pspro View Post

      One thing that I have not seen covered is what to do with the necessary website pages, the "contact","privacy","disclaimer","TOS"??

      Can anyone share insight on how to handle these pages?
      Hi Guys, hope you don't mind me butting in here. I have just finished building the first stage of my second large 'silo' website and I thought I'd share what I do for these types of pages.

      I put my 'Contact Us', 'Privacy Policy', 'Terms of Use' and 'About Us' pages in a pop-up lightbox. They are all comprised of images. I make a temporary webpage for each of them and then take screen captures of each page. I then format them in Photoshop. They end up looking exactly the same as the website text and the only way people would know it's not html text is if they try to Copy and Paste.

      It's a bit more work but this way I can keep all my silos in-tact and still have all these essential pages available.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Griffin View Post

        Hi Guys, hope you don't mind me butting in here. I have just finished building the first stage of my second large 'silo' website and I thought I'd share what I do for these types of pages.

        I put my 'Contact Us', 'Privacy Policy', 'Terms of Use' and 'About Us' pages in a pop-up lightbox. They are all comprised of images. I make a temporary webpage for each of them and then take screen captures of each page. I then format them in Photoshop. They end up looking exactly the same as the website text and the only way people would know it's not html text is if they try to Copy and Paste.

        It's a bit more work but this way I can keep all my silos in-tact and still have all these essential pages available.
        I would be careful having your Privacy Policy as an Image.

        Anything that Google requires in the Adsense TOS should be in plain text, IMO.

        The reason I say this is, If a manual reviewer isn't running javascript or is running a text based browser (you never know). I haven't double checked yet, but I think I remember reading something about javascript & images possibly being turned off during a manual review, from the leaked Adsense pdf a couple months back.

        I have a copy of that pdf I'll try & look it up later on.
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        • Profile picture of the author Griffin
          Hi Yukon, yeah I was initially worried about this too but haven't been able to find anything suggesting it would be a problem. I've had it on 2 sites for about 3 years so far and no problems - I know that doesn't mean anything though

          I have that leaked document too but it's on another hard drive in another country at the moment and I won't have access to it for few months so I'd be interested to see what you find out. This is one aspect of a silo site that most 'experts' never talk about - and a pretty important one at that.
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Griffin View Post

            Hi Yukon, yeah I was initially worried about this too but haven't been able to find anything suggesting it would be a problem. I've had it on 2 sites for about 3 years so far and no problems - I know that doesn't mean anything though

            I have that leaked document too but it's on another hard drive in another country at the moment and I won't have access to it for few months so I'd be interested to see what you find out. This is one aspect of a silo site that most 'experts' never talk about - and a pretty important one at that.
            I still wouldn't have a Adsense TOS inside an image.

            Not trying to sound paranoid, but look at page #97-#98 (disable CSS & javascript) in the leaked pdf above, in my last comment.

            Disabling javascript & CSS might not allow your TOS/image to show during a manual site review? All depends how your TOS/image is coded.

            It's safer to have plain text, IMO.
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          • Profile picture of the author Black Hat Cat
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Griffin View Post

            This is one aspect of a silo site that most 'experts' never talk about - and a pretty important one at that.
            They don't talk about it because it's a non-issue. In the grand scheme of things, what you do with your TOS, Privacy, etc is going to have no effect on your rankings one way or the other, silo or not.
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        • Profile picture of the author Kris79
          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          I would be careful having your Privacy Policy as an Image.

          Anything that Google requires in the Adsense TOS should be in plain text, IMO.

          The reason I say this is, If a manual reviewer isn't running javascript or is running a text based browser (you never know). I haven't double checked yet, but I think I remember reading something about javascript & images possibly being turned off during a manual review, from the leaked Adsense pdf a couple months back.

          I have a copy of that pdf I'll try & look it up later on.
          Thank you Yukon for all this knowledge.
          I wasn't know about term "silo" until I read your post. I known this from "pagerank sculpting" from different point of view.

          Here are my suggestions or more like questions for verification:

          1. IFRAME - put Privacy Policy, About, Contact links in IFRAME, this way it will not be followed by google bot. But I'm not sure what about AdSense and how manual review would go with this.

          2. "#" hashtag - put Privacy Policy, About, Contact on a single page and then link to it using "#":
          yourdomain. com/about
          yourdomain. com/about#contact
          yourdomain. com/about#about
          Google do not read anything after "#" so it will treat all links as one link to about page.

          BTW: do you know a plugin for WP that allows using "#" on much bigger scale?
          For example:
          yourdomain. com/#about
          or
          yourdomain. com/#/about

          and when you click on it your are redirected to:
          yourdomain. com/about
          and not to a section of homepage?


          3. You mentioned on the first page of this thread that dafont is using javascript to generate category menu for humans. But isn't it illegal from Google's point of view?
          I was reading Matt Cutts that showing different content to google bot and visitor is not good. But it was more about competelly different content. I'm not sure how Google treats that kind of difference as dafont is doing.

          4. Leaked Adsense pdf - I was looking for this but couldn't find, could you post a link?

          Thanks

          Kris
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Kris79 View Post

            Thank you Yukon for all this knowledge.
            I wasn't know about term "silo" until I read your post. I known this from "pagerank sculpting" from different point of view.

            Here are my suggestions or more like questions for verification:

            1. IFRAME - put Privacy Policy, About, Contact links in IFRAME, this way it will not be followed by google bot. But I'm not sure what about AdSense and how manual review would go with this.

            2. "#" hashtag - put Privacy Policy, About, Contact on a single page and then link to it using "#":
            yourdomain. com/about
            yourdomain. com/about#contact
            yourdomain. com/about#about
            Google do not read anything after "#" so it will treat all links as one link to about page.

            BTW: do you know a plugin for WP that allows using "#" on much bigger scale?
            For example:
            yourdomain. com/#about
            or
            yourdomain. com/#/about

            and when you click on it your are redirected to:
            yourdomain. com/about
            and not to a section of homepage?


            3. You mentioned on the first page of this thread that dafont is using javascript to generate category menu for humans. But isn't it illegal from Google's point of view?
            I was reading Matt Cutts that showing different content to google bot and visitor is not good. But it was more about competelly different content. I'm not sure how Google treats that kind of difference as dafont is doing.

            4. Leaked Adsense pdf - I was looking for this but couldn't find, could you post a link?

            Thanks

            Kris

            1) Again, If your running Adsense on the site I highly recommend creating a regular TOS page, NOINDEX the TOS page, NOFFOLLOW any TOS links on the site. That's about the best you can do & still follow the TOS.

            2) That's exactly what I'm planning for my own theme. I'll have a single page that includes everything About, TOS, Contact Us, this page will use jump-links. This way you can NOINDEX the single page & only have a single link in the footer that points to everything on that single page.

            So instead of 3 links like this in the footer:


            I would have 1 link in the footer like this (with NOINDEX on the page & NOFOLLOW on any of the TOS links site-wide):

            I haven't done this yet, but I seriously don't see anything wrong with combining all these pages into a single page & then having jump-links on the page for easier navigation for traffic. Really who visits these types of pages on a site?

            I still make the pages legit & look nice, but that's only for the TOS.

            This would have to be all hard coded, no plugins really needed IMO.


            3) Thing is, most times it's hard to prove that a site is intentionally trying to control PR flow. For example, plenty of webmasters don't know that some javascript Nav. links won't show up in a text only browser. So it's kinda hard to prove anything. It could be simply lack of understanding page design.

            My advice is never javascript important TOS links.

            4) PDF link: Rating Guidelines

            Look at page #98 in the pdf (link above) - Disabling JavaScript.

            Again, I don't recommend having your Privacy Policy links in javascript If it's an Adsense site.
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            • Profile picture of the author Kris79
              Originally Posted by yukon View Post

              1) Again, If your running Adsense on the site I highly recommend creating a regular TOS page, NOINDEX the TOS page, NOFFOLLOW any TOS links on the site. That's about the best you can do & still follow the TOS.

              2) That's exactly what I'm planning for my own theme. I'll have a single page that includes everything About, TOS, Contact Us, this page will use jump-links. This way you can NOINDEX the single page & only have a single link in the footer that points to everything on that single page.

              So instead of 3 links like this in the footer:




              I would have 1 link in the footer like this (with NOINDEX on the page & NOFOLLOW on any of the TOS links site-wide):



              I haven't done this yet, but I seriously don't see anything wrong with combining all these pages into a single page & then having jump-links on the page for easier navigation for traffic. Really who visits these types of pages on a site?

              I still make the pages legit & look nice, but that's only for the TOS.

              This would have to be all hard coded, no plugins really needed IMO.


              3) Thing is, most times it's hard to prove that a site is intentionally trying to control PR flow. For example, plenty of webmasters don't know that some javascript Nav. links won't show up in a text only browser. So it's kinda hard to prove anything. It could be simply lack of understanding page design.

              My advice is never javascript important TOS links.

              4) PDF link: Rating Guidelines

              Look at page #98 in the pdf (link above) - Disabling JavaScript.

              Again, I don't recommend having your Privacy Policy links in javascript If it's an Adsense site.

              Thank you for your answers.

              I have one more a little bit more complicated

              My problem is about page structure. Your architecture is clear: if you have 4 silo landing pages you don't link between them, only link between pages within a specific silo.
              But if you have 1 silo completely build:
              1 silo landing page + 10 supporting pages
              and you want to build another silo within this one, transforming one of supporting pages into sub-silo with its own supporting pages, sort of new branch.
              The question is: how to build links if you have nested structures when supporting page of mail silo is becoming also a silo with its own supporting pages?

              I hope it's not too messed up

              Kris
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              • Profile picture of the author yukon
                Banned
                Originally Posted by Kris79 View Post

                Thank you for your answers.

                I have one more a little bit more complicated

                My problem is about page structure. Your architecture is clear: if you have 4 silo landing pages you don't link between them, only link between pages within a specific silo.
                But if you have 1 silo completely build:
                1 silo landing page + 10 supporting pages
                and you want to build another silo within this one, transforming one of supporting pages into sub-silo with its own supporting pages, sort of new branch.
                The question is: how to build links if you have nested structures when supporting page of mail silo is becoming also a silo with its own supporting pages?

                I hope it's not too messed up

                Kris

                Personally I wouldn't nest more than 1 silo deep, the reason is, everything starts getting more complicated & the URLs start getting longer which isn't good IMO.

                hxxp://domain.com/silo-landing-page-1/supporting-page/

                hxxp://domain.com/silo-landing-page-1/silo-landing-page-2/supporting-page/
                I suppose it depends what your site is trying to accomplish, but I have a few niche sites with +1,000 pages of content that only nest 1 silo/category deep.

                If your only adding a few pages to compliment a supporting page that is getting good traffic, then the first thing I would do is add more pages in the same silo that are relevant to the supporting page keyword that is generating good traffic.

                If that's not enough or you need to build a lot of pages for the supporting page keyword, build another top-level silo landing page & supporting pages all focused on that keyword.

                Again, I prefer to keep it as simple as possible, it just makes life easier managing the site long term.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
    yukon, got a quick question.

    Using your site structure (I used a different structure building my 1st large site - same result though), how do you create the homepage?

    I assume the homepage should be "static"? Do you just assign a static homepage in WP settings (in which case, what do you choose for a blog page? Just leave it empty? Your posts go on the blog page...).

    Thanks!
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by bnetwork View Post

      yukon, got a quick question.

      Using your site structure (I used a different structure building my 1st large site - same result though), how do you create the homepage?

      I assume the homepage should be "static"? Do you just assign a static homepage in WP settings (in which case, what do you choose for a blog page? Just leave it empty? Your posts go on the blog page...).

      Thanks!
      I noticed your running the Thesis WP-theme, I'm not sure what that theme can do as far as a WP-Category page.

      The silo theme I'm working on now is setup so that I can write a 100% unique article directly on the WP-Category page, it's not a blog Post, it's not a WP-Page, it's not a redirect of any kind, it's an actual WP-Category Page. I create my WP-Category article directly inside the WP-Category Admin page. I have this WP-Category Article code already up & running & tested, works great.

      When you land on my themes WP-Category page you would think your looking at a regular blog Post, instead it's an actual Category page. Then I link out from that Category Article page to all the WP blog Post inside that Category.

      Notice the example below, that would be my WP-Category page/article, the links below the Category Article are all the WP-Post inside that same Category.

      This example below would be my silo landing page (Category page).



      Red Cars

      Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec ac nulla magna. Cras eu magna erat. Suspendisse scelerisque pretium leo, in porta nibh tristique in. Nullam molestie tellus ut mi porttitor suscipit. Morbi urna magna, condimentum vel iaculis quis, fermentum eget leo. Pellentesque vitae mi urna, vulputate sagittis tellus. Maecenas sodales dignissim velit eget porttitor. Donec iaculis viverra turpis, in placerat ipsum vestibulum id. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Duis sollicitudin iaculis leo at convallis. Phasellus pharetra, diam eget pellentesque auctor, enim odio vulputate nisl, id mollis ipsum metus non massa. Nullam ac ultricies metus. Aliquam faucibus lobortis dolor in fringilla. Integer vel libero non lectus dignissim accumsan quis in neque. Phasellus sit amet mauris pharetra neque varius porttitor. Duis euismod sollicitudin est, in tempus tellus scelerisque sed.

      Some things about Red Cars
      Aenean nec quam et dui vestibulum rhoncus a a mi. Curabitur semper dui vitae velit mattis in sodales arcu auctor. Proin hendrerit eleifend mi, sit amet dapibus sapien eleifend nec. Etiam sed tellus et lectus convallis sagittis. Vestibulum sed pharetra elit. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aenean eu risus libero. Quisque semper orci in dolor auctor eu rhoncus nibh facilisis. Vestibulum quis nunc dui. Duis ultrices nisl magna. Curabitur dictum nulla at magna fringilla sagittis. Praesent tortor ipsum, congue eget malesuada vitae, tempor sit amet quam. Quisque mi dui, mollis tempor congue vitae, tempus id mi. Cras libero dolor, vestibulum at condimentum vitae, placerat sit amet leo.

      More things about Red Cars
      Donec adipiscing, mauris in dignissim sagittis, magna metus cursus metus, ac varius elit mi quis lectus. Nulla id risus sem. Maecenas posuere euismod arcu a accumsan. Vivamus ultrices nisl pulvinar nulla ullamcorper egestas. Mauris vitae orci in orci rutrum suscipit. Aenean pulvinar aliquet sapien, ut placerat lectus aliquet ac. Mauris vitae consectetur sapien. Donec dignissim nibh vitae eros vestibulum pulvinar rutrum tellus venenatis. Aenean eget commodo mauris. Integer luctus pretium faucibus. Ut convallis sollicitudin pellentesque. Sed gravida ante id nisi dapibus imperdiet eu nec justo. Cras nec turpis in est interdum molestie.

      Even more things about Red Cars
      Morbi eget nisl vel massa consequat rutrum. In suscipit placerat sapien, a facilisis magna faucibus nec. Etiam auctor ultrices tortor sed ullamcorper. Phasellus nec purus quam, quis commodo magna. Fusce a tortor odio, condimentum condimentum tortor. Aliquam non venenatis est. Nam vestibulum justo magna, nec malesuada massa. Mauris elementum aliquet velit, sit amet scelerisque enim vestibulum sed. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Duis molestie vehicula lorem in bibendum. Etiam lacinia dictum vulputate. Morbi justo sem, cursus sit amet viverra quis, commodo in metus. Nulla facilisi. Sed tempor mattis odio, et porta odio scelerisque eu.


      New Red Cars are Fast
      Red Cars Have Tires
      Red Cars are Made in the USA
      Xinc Recalls Red Cars
      Red Cars are Safe
      Red Cars make a Great Tax Deduction




      The Index page would contain links pointing at all my WP-Categories (landing pages). What you do with your Index page really is all about the WP-theme & will take some custom WP code. I link to my Categories on the Index page like most blogs link to their recent WP-Post.

      I don't link to any WP-Post from the Index page, only Categories, well that & my Privacy Policy etc... You can still fill the page up with content in the sidebars & footer, you just have to be creative in how you display the content (javascript, etc...).
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      • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        I noticed your running the Thesis WP-theme, I'm not sure what that theme can do as far as a WP-Category page.
        <snip>
        Cool, thanks for the reply man. I get the structure, not a problem. I've a blog running on Thesis with category pages just as you have described (unique content, looks like a blog post/page).

        Ignore my question - just realised I was looking at a batch of blogs that were set up in a different way (client asked for some random custom permalink stuff). Got a bit confused.
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  • Profile picture of the author JB777
    Originally Posted by yukon View Post

    The silo theme I'm working on now is setup so that I can write a 100% unique article directly on the WP-Category page, it's not a blog Post, it's not a WP-Page, it's not a redirect of any kind, it's an actual WP-Category Page. I create my WP-Category article directly inside the WP-Category Admin page. I have this WP-Category Article code already up & running & tested, works great.


    Approx how many words have you been using for these? I've only been using short descriptions, 150 words or less.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by JB777 View Post


      Approx how many words have you been using for these? I've only been using short descriptions, 150 words or less.
      Depends how many pages you have in the Category. I use the category page to summarize each individual WP-Post page with a single paragraph per WP-Post, in that same category.

      I do suggest you keep everything on the Category article/page 100% unique, otherwise you'll have pages ending up in supplemental SERPs because of duplicate pages.
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  • Profile picture of the author LEIVA
    Yukon thanks for all the info, now what about having a existing site not a silo structure just a regular blog with 20 post.

    1: I was thinking in remove and start again or re-structure the site with the silo structure.

    2: Or buy a new domain and apply the silo from scratch

    i will prefer the option 1 with re-structure but doing that will make the site go down or up and stronger.

    What you think
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    • Profile picture of the author The Expert
      Here's how I build silo structures with wordpress:

      1) Scategory Permalinks Plugin - this plugin allows you to easily build your site with a silo structure in the yoursite.com/category/postname format. So if you were running iphoneaccessories.com and were looking to optimize for "iphone covers" you would just create that category and then assign it as the "primary" category via scategory permalinks when creating the post.

      The primary category is what gets built into the url. So if you have a blue hardshell cover from siefer and create the post you might assign it to the iphone accessories, iphone covers, siefer products, and siefer iphone covers categories but the main purpose of the post is to strengthen your silo category page for "iphone covers". So when building the post you select all those cateogries and then set "iphone covers" as the primary. The structure would then be iphoneaccessories.com/iphone-covers/blue-siefer-hardcase-iphone-cover/

      2) Build Custom Category Silo Pages - I hate the category pages which Wordpress builds. They are not flexible or easy to customize. So I build a custom page with a custom template which allows me to type my intro content as normal but I then assign a few variables to custom fields (like the category #) and when the page is published it displays the intro content like a page but it also runs a list of the most recent posts in blog-style format below it.

      I only have it display the 7 Newest Posts in the category and then there is a link to a full index (also a custom designed page) which lists all the items in that category in alphabetical order (instead of order of publication) with pagination at the bottom.

      In order to avoid any duplicate content issues, I build all posts with a custom excerpt. The main silo pages (with the 7 newest posts) display the initial 350 characters of the post using the_content() and then the alphabetical index pages display the blurb using the_excerpt(). This way not only is the what is shown on the main silo category page different in order from what is shown on the index page, it's also completely different because the content displayed is different.

      3) Redirect Category URLS - Once everything is set to go, I 301 Redirect the Category URLs to the main Silo page that I'm working to rank.
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  • Profile picture of the author segaituk
    Absolutely useful thread for newbie like me. Thanks to Yukon for sharing his knowledge.
    I do understand the whole idea of having a one main page per keyword we want to rank and bunch of supporting pages linking to it. However there is one thing I seem not to be able to grasp. Even started a thread on my own (before I found this one), but not much activity in there. So I would like to ask here as well, hoping that Yukon or someone else could provide some explanation:

    Should this keyword “main page” (talking about wp) be:
    a) static page
    b) the category page with structure /%category%/%postname%
    c) any single post page we choose

    From what I see in the Yukon’s chart it is most likely the category page. If so, then the question about the page content comes. No permanent content in the page, unless we put a static text in there.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by segaituk View Post

      Absolutely useful thread for newbie like me. Thanks to Yukon for sharing his knowledge.
      I do understand the whole idea of having a one main page per keyword we want to rank and bunch of supporting pages linking to it. However there is one thing I seem not to be able to grasp. Even started a thread on my own (before I found this one), but not much activity in there. So I would like to ask here as well, hoping that Yukon or someone else could provide some explanation:

      Should this keyword "main page" (talking about wp) be:
      a) static page
      b) the category page with structure /%category%/%postname%
      c) any single post page we choose

      From what I see in the Yukon's chart it is most likely the category page. If so, then the question about the page content comes. No permanent content in the page, unless we put a static text in there.
      It would be like this:

      Example Silo-1:
      1) Index page keyword = Dog
      2) Category page keyword = Stop dog barking
      3) Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Stop dog barking at night

      Example Silo-2:
      1) Index page keyword = Dog
      2) Category page keyword = Dog food
      3) Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Best dog food for older dogs

      Example Silo-3:
      1) Index page keyword = Dog
      2) Category page keyword = Dog kennels
      3) Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Dog kennels for large dogs

      Notice the keyword patterns per silo, the index page keyword stays the same since it's the root keyword/page.
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      • Profile picture of the author segaituk
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        It would be like this:

        Example Silo-1:
        1) Index page keyword = Dog
        2) Category page keyword = Stop dog barking
        3) Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Stop dog barking at night

        Example Silo-2:
        1) Index page keyword = Dog
        2) Category page keyword = Dog food
        3) Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Best dog food for older dogs

        Example Silo-3:
        1) Index page keyword = Dog
        2) Category page keyword = Dog kennels
        3) Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Dog kennels for large dogs

        Notice the keyword patterns per silo, the index page keyword stays the same since it's the root keyword/page.

        Yes, thank you! I got that the category page are the main URLs to rank for different long tail keywords like "stop dog barking", "dog food", etc.. . What I have now is niche site with 5 different longtail keywords I would like to rank for. They don't have the same phonetic root with common word like "dog" although they are closely related within the same field. For example: "Plastic surgeon", "how to find good plastic surgeon", "the best breast implants","the best lips implant" with domain plasticsurgeon.com.

        So what I thought of doing was to try ranking the index page (with static text on it) for the most relevant to the domain keyword "plastic surgeon" and have category for each of the rest of the keywords with the category URL as the main target page and all the new coming post pages supporting and link pointing their categories.

        I is that right way to go? An also, as mentioned, if the categories pages have changing short excerpts from the posts won't that hurt it SEOwise?
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        • Profile picture of the author jurky
          Hey guys, I'm building a new web site which covers on page SEO from scratch, and I go into every possible detail that I can think of. One of the topics that I came to is the Silo structure.

          Everything is completely free, no opt ins, nothing. You can check it here, I hope that you'll understand some silo principles in more detail:

          www.voiceofseo.com

          Keep in mind that I'm still building this page (my estimations that it will take about a full month to finish it completely), but in the end, its gonna be worth it, I promise .
          Signature

          Just check out my Google+ profile, that's all :) WHAT? You were expecting some kind of a sales pitch ???

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          • Profile picture of the author mightiest
            My question is pretty simple -- how do you back up the pages that are in the silo?

            Let's say I have a website about rock climbing and the main keyword I'm trying to rank for is "rock climbing," but I've also found that related KWs like "how to do rock climbing," "rock climbing equipment," and "rock climbing technique" are also pretty non-competitive and I want to rank for them.

            Is it best to structure my site as so:

            Category: Rock Climbing
            • how to do rock climbing
            • rock climbing equipment
            • rock climbing technique

            Or with each of those KWs as its own category and then have content supporting each one? I ask because it seems to me like you're going to wind up with a lot of redundant support articles in the 2nd method.
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            • Profile picture of the author yukon
              Banned
              Originally Posted by mightiest View Post

              My question is pretty simple -- how do you back up the pages that are in the silo?

              Let's say I have a website about rock climbing and the main keyword I'm trying to rank for is "rock climbing," but I've also found that related KWs like "how to do rock climbing," "rock climbing equipment," and "rock climbing technique" are also pretty non-competitive and I want to rank for them.

              Is it best to structure my site as so:

              Category: Rock Climbing
              • how to do rock climbing
              • rock climbing equipment
              • rock climbing technique

              Or with each of those KWs as its own category and then have content supporting each one? I ask because it seems to me like you're going to wind up with a lot of redundant support articles in the 2nd method.


              "How to do rock climbing" & "Rock climbing technique" are basically the same things so you wouldn't want two separate categories for the same subject. I would keep one & use the other as a supporting page title/keyword.

              I would do something like this below for the rest of the keywords in your example:

              Example Silo-1:
              • Index page keyword = Rock Climbing
                • Category page keyword = Rock Climbing Techniques
                • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Use Basic Foot Positions - Climbing Technique
                • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Don't Hug the Rock - Climbing Technique
                • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Look, Think, Then Move - Climbing Technique

              Example Silo-2:
              • Index page keyword = Rock Climbing
                • Category page keyword = Rock Climbing Equipment
                • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Safety Harness - Climbing Equipment
                • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Rope, Cord, & Webbing - Climbing Equipment
                • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Steel Carabiner - Climbing Equipment

              Rock Climbing Equipment - is something you buy.

              Rock Climbing Techniques - is something you physically do.

              The two keyword phrases above are good Categories/"Silo Landing Pages" since both are related to the root keyword Rock Climbing, yet both are separate subjects for the root keyword (Rock Climbing).



              Possible additional Silo for the root keyword Rock Climbing.

              Example Silo-3:
              • Index page keyword = Rock Climbing
                • Category page keyword = Rock Climbing Exercises
                • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Hanging side crunch/twist - Climbing Exercise
                • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Pull Ups - Climbing Exercise
                • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Forearms - Climbing Exercise
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              • Profile picture of the author stallion317
                Hey yukon . Thanks a lot for the information you have provided. I have learnt a lot regarding the silo structure.. I have created a site based on your diagram. I guess its been optimized for the search engines, the only problem i feel is the user experience, the user will have to go to my homepage each time if he wants to go to different category.. As u have mentioned in the above post using javascripts to create menu which is not crawled by google, is there any wp plugin which will do the needfull. I have 0 knowledge on coding...I just need to fix this to complete my 1st silo site..

                Thanks Again For All The Info
                Regards..
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                • Profile picture of the author yukon
                  Banned
                  Originally Posted by stallion317 View Post

                  Hey yukon . Thanks a lot for the information you have provided. I have learnt a lot regarding the silo structure.. I have created a site based on your diagram. I guess its been optimized for the search engines, the only problem i feel is the user experience, the user will have to go to my homepage each time if he wants to go to different category.. As u have mentioned in the above post using javascripts to create menu which is not crawled by google, is there any wp plugin which will do the needfull. I have 0 knowledge on coding...I just need to fix this to complete my 1st silo site..

                  Thanks Again For All The Info
                  Regards..
                  I don't know of any plugins that would create a javascript menu on a WP-theme, it's possible they exist, I just haven't seen any.

                  I usually hard code things like javascript into my themes.
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              • Profile picture of the author mightiest
                Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                "How to do rock climbing" & "Rock climbing technique" are basically the same things so you wouldn't want two separate categories for the same subject. I would keep one & use the other as a supporting page title/keyword.

                I would do something like this below for the rest of the keywords in your example:

                Example Silo-1:
                • Index page keyword = Rock Climbing
                  • Category page keyword = Rock Climbing Techniques
                  • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Use Basic Foot Positions - Climbing Technique
                  • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Don’t Hug the Rock - Climbing Technique
                  • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Look, Think, Then Move - Climbing Technique

                Example Silo-2:
                • Index page keyword = Rock Climbing
                  • Category page keyword = Rock Climbing Equipment
                  • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Safety Harness - Climbing Equipment
                  • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Rope, Cord, & Webbing - Climbing Equipment
                  • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Steel Carabiner - Climbing Equipment

                Rock Climbing Equipment - is something you buy.

                Rock Climbing Techniques - is something you physically do.

                The two keyword phrases above are good Categories/"Silo Landing Pages" since both are related to the root keyword Rock Climbing, yet both are separate subjects for the root keyword (Rock Climbing).



                Possible additional Silo for the root keyword Rock Climbing.

                Example Silo-3:
                • Index page keyword = Rock Climbing
                  • Category page keyword = Rock Climbing Exercises
                  • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Hanging side crunch/twist - Climbing Exercise
                  • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Pull Ups - Climbing Exercise
                  • Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Forearms - Climbing Exercise
                I get it!

                Thanks man. I really appreciate the time you've taken out of your day and the concrete examples you've given. A lot of this stuff is abstract and it gets confusing until you see it laid out.

                How do you handle different tenses of a keyword? I'll use a different example that makes more sense... say you're targeting "Room Cleaning" and "Room Cleaner." Obviously, they're related terms and I know that Google can symantically understand that they're related, but do you create a separate set of pages to target both sets of words?
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                • Profile picture of the author yukon
                  Banned
                  Originally Posted by mightiest View Post

                  I get it!

                  Thanks man. I really appreciate the time you've taken out of your day and the concrete examples you've given. A lot of this stuff is abstract and it gets confusing until you see it laid out.

                  How do you handle different tenses of a keyword? I'll use a different example that makes more sense... say you're targeting "Room Cleaning" and "Room Cleaner." Obviously, they're related terms and I know that Google can symantically understand that they're related, but do you create a separate set of pages to target both sets of words?
                  "Room Cleaning" - would be a physical action.

                  "Room Cleaner" - could be a person or a product, about the best you can do is define what your keyword is with on-page text.

                  I would create separate Categories/Silos for both keywords (Room Cleaning & Room Cleaner).
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          • Profile picture of the author mraffiliate
            Originally Posted by jurky View Post

            Hey guys, I'm building a new web site which covers on page SEO from scratch, and I go into every possible detail that I can think of. One of the topics that I came to is the Silo structure.

            Everything is completely free, no opt ins, nothing. You can check it here, I hope that you'll understand some silo principles in more detail:

            www.voiceofseo.com

            Keep in mind that I'm still building this page (my estimations that it will take about a full month to finish it completely), but in the end, its gonna be worth it, I promise .
            Thanks Jurky, Nice job on the explanation of a silo site structure
            Signature

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            • Profile picture of the author marco005
              Wow

              great topic here.

              But as a noob I don't understand to rank with a silo structured website, my quuestion:

              When I build a website like this:


              Example Silo-1:
              1) Index page keyword = Dog
              2) Category page keyword = Stop dog barking
              3) Blog post (supporting page) keyword = Stop dog barking at night

              So for what keyword I try to rank????

              1) keyword Dog??????
              2) keyword Stop dog barking????
              3) keyword the title of the blog post; Stop dog barking at night???

              Or must I do keyword research for every category I buuild on my website like 2), to rank for the category keyword?

              Must I do keyword research too, for the blog post in the category I will rank for?

              Summary: Mus I select niche keywords for each category and blog post, so I try to rank for the category and the blog post??? Not the index page (root keyword) so like mini sites who has the keyword in the domain? So yes, this is lot aof hard work, lot of hours,days doing keyword research.....

              Not try to rank for the root index page keyword so like mini site model?

              And when I try build backlinks, must I make backlinks for each category, also write articles on amazine as an example, in the end of my article I link to the category, is that right??

              So a website with 10 categories, that's are 10 keywords with low competition not more than 100.000 competition in "mykeyword" or lesser, and build 20 backlinks to every category x10=200 backlinks, is that right?

              Is ist better to use a 1 column theme the categorys are in the header menu, I think this is not user friendly, when every category has 10-20 blog posts/pages in it or make it like Safavieh Rugs - Safavieh Furniture & Area Rugs - SafaviehRugs.net ???

              Which free plugin for wordpress can make breadcrumbs and interlink other related posts in the same category and who link back from the category to the main index page, are there any free wordpress plugins who do that?

              best wishes
              marco005
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  • Profile picture of the author eshapard
    The SEO Ultimate wordpress plugin does a pretty good job of creating a silo. You can replace the regular categories widget with a silo categories widget. It shows your categories on the home page, and links to category posts in category pages. SEO Ultimate will also get rid of 'category' in your category page urls. There's also a feature called deep-link juggernaut that automatically creates links to certain posts where the anchor text you define exists in another post. You can confine this to only posts within the same category.... Maybe not the most ideal silo, but pretty good for a free plugin.
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  • Profile picture of the author money200
    Excellent Chart Yuko,These charts are giving me full overview of Links.
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  • Profile picture of the author ActivePresent
    Thanks good chart yukon
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  • Profile picture of the author LEIVA
    yukon, and how about doing it on html no-wordpress can be better or is practically the same thing. thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by LEIVA View Post

      yukon, and how about doing it on html no-wordpress can be better or is practically the same thing. thanks
      If your building a small site, sure, go for it.

      An html silo is pretty much the same, only you can use folders, it's basic site structure.

      Creating a silo with wordpress is a virtual silo considering we don't structure the site with folders like an html site. All the silos on a WP theme are created with on-page hyperlinks.

      I wouldn't recommend creating large silo sites with html, it would be a lot of long term work.

      What's nice about WP & a virtual silo is, you can edit the theme template files to do all the work for you.

      Still, If you have a small site, a standard silo would be ok to build.

      To answer your question, they both (html & WP-theme) can return the same or very similar html code when viewing the sites source code in a browser.
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      • Profile picture of the author LEIVA
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        If your building a small site, sure, go for it.

        An html silo is pretty much the same only you can use folders, it's basic site structure.

        Creating a silo with wordpress is a virtual silo considering we don't structure the site with folders like an html site. All the silos on a WP theme are created with on-page hyperlinks.

        I wouldn't recommend creating large silo sites with html, it would be a lot of long term work.

        What's nice about WP & a virtual silo is, you can edit the theme template files to do all the work for you.

        Still, If you have a small site, a standard silo would be ok to build.

        To answer your question, they both (html & WP-theme) can return the same or very similar html code when viewing the sites source code in a browser.
        Thanks a lot yukon, yeah it can be a lot for long term work.

        Now talking about hardlinks/backlinks i know is good to have backlinks to all the silo pages but what will be the main backlink to point, it will be to the Home/index or the silo/page.
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        • Profile picture of the author yukon
          Banned
          Originally Posted by LEIVA View Post

          Thanks a lot yukon, yeah it can be a lot for long term work.

          Now talking about hardlinks/backlinks i know is good to have backlinks to all the silo pages but what will be the main backlink to point, it will be to the Home/index or the silo/page.
          I point approx. 50% of my external backlinks at the silo landing page (category page). The other approx. 50% external backlinks are pointing at my silo supporting pages.

          The 50/50 isn't set in stone.

          Example, say I have a supporting page ranking at #9 in Google SERPs for a long-tail keyword, & this page is getting good traffic. I'll build more external backlinks pointing at that specific supporting page to try & get that page ranking at the top of Google SERPs (position #1, #2, or #3). If I hit position #3 in the SERPs for the long-tail keyword & traffic jumps a lot higher than my old position #9 then I'll re-think that supporting pages purpose (more backlinks, new silo, both?).

          Ultimately the goal is to rank the silo landing page (category page), still supporting pages will also start ranking for long-tail keywords that you never thought of (it happens a lot).

          I treat each silo as If it's a totally independent site, think of a silo like a mini site. Each silo landing page supports the Index page/keyword.
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          • Profile picture of the author mrdomains
            Originally Posted by yukon View Post

            I treat each silo as If it's a totally independent site, think of a silo like a mini site.
            Excellent advice.

            I confess to being a silo fan and find this to be a valuable thread. Question: in almost all discussions about silo and WP, the topic of replacing categories comes up with plugins to do the job.

            Isn't the same achieved by
            • using a permalink format of only /%postname%/
            • not showing any category widgets
            • using pages as silos ("category" homepages) with unique article + links to supporting pages?

            Just curious if using no category plugins have positive effects that I am not understanding
            Signature

            Free action plan : Think less. Do more.

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            • Profile picture of the author yukon
              Banned
              Originally Posted by mrdomains View Post

              Excellent advice.

              I confess to being a silo fan and find this to be a valuable thread. Question: in almost all discussions about silo and WP, the topic of replacing categories comes up with plugins to do the job.

              Isn't the same achieved by
              • using a permalink format of only /%postname%/
              • not showing any category widgets
              • using pages as silos ("category" homepages) with unique article + links to supporting pages?

              Just curious if using no category plugins have positive effects that I am not understanding
              Most WP themes are just bloated with random things, that are not needed for a silo theme. Chances are high that you'll still have to edit the theme source code to remove a few things.

              Even If you use /%postname%/ you'll still get a URL like:

              domain.com/category/this-is-my-latest-blog-post/
              I posted a plugin that will fix that, the links on here somewhere.

              You can use Pages, like I said above, I'm running custom Category page code that lets me create a regular article on my WP-Category page (looks like a regular blog post). Anything you can post in a regular blog post, I can post the same on my Category/Silo page. Again, I don't do 301 redirects.
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  • Profile picture of the author LEIVA
    yukon, i think im missing something here, when you have your (silo/category) done as you know in wp when you click the category it will show you a least the latest 10 post in that category.

    So when all the site is done do i 301 redirect the (category/silo) to the post or page that has the same name that you want to rank.

    Or edit the category/silo to looks like a normal page ?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by LEIVA View Post

      yukon, i think im missing something here, when you have your (silo/category) done as you know in wp when you click the category it will show you a least the latest 10 post in that category.

      So when all the site is done do i 301 redirect the (category/silo) to the post or page that has the same name that you want to rank.

      Or edit the category/silo to looks like a normal page ?
      Yes, I edit the Category/Silo landing page to look the same as a regular blog post.

      I don't do any 301 redirects like most people do, that's not necessary IMO.

      I do run custom WP-Category code on my new theme I'm still working on.
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  • Profile picture of the author jdooley13
    Yukon, I bought the 100K adsense course and have installed the WP theme that came with the program (the updated, post ads above the fold "Zone Theme 3.0" version). I don't know if you are familiar with that theme but, if you are, I was wondering if there was anyway to properly silo that theme?
    Signature

    High Quality Solo Ads.
    http://jadmarketing.net/solo-ads/

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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by jdooley13 View Post

      Yukon, I bought the 100K adsense course and have installed the WP theme that came with the program (the updated, post ads above the fold "Zone Theme 3.0" version). I don't know if you are familiar with that theme but, if you are, I was wondering if there was anyway to properly silo that theme?
      I've never seen the theme so I can't say how much work it would be to convert the theme to a silo theme.
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  • Profile picture of the author LEIVA
    yukon, are you using thesis theme (i have it) or another theme?
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    • Profile picture of the author eduf
      yukon, what do you think about menus? dofollow or nofollow?

      assuming that the menu is:

      Home | Silo 1 | Silo 2 | Silo 3 | Silo 4 | Terms and Contact (nofollow&noindex)



      I'm using at the end of the text the following structure:


      See more about <a>main silo keyword</a>
      <a>sub-page 1</a>
      <a>sub-page 2</a>
      <a>sub-page 4</a>

      thankyou!
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by eduf View Post

        yukon, what do you think about menus? dofollow or nofollow?

        assuming that the menu is:

        Home | Silo 1 | Silo 2 | Silo 3 | Silo 4 | Terms and Contact (nofollow&noindex)



        I'm using at the end of the text the following structure:


        See more about <a>main silo keyword</a>
        <a>sub-page 1</a>
        <a>sub-page 2</a>
        <a>sub-page 4</a>

        thankyou!

        It all depends on which page your on, how you structure your on-page links.

        Take a look at the graphs in this thread, they should help.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by LEIVA View Post

      yukon, are you using thesis theme (i have it) or another theme?
      I use my own themes.
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  • Profile picture of the author GeorgR.
    I have parent page called "Stop Dog Barking"

    under that there is "Stop Dog Barking in the Crate"
    "Stop Dog Barking at Night"
    "Stop Dogs Barking at Other Dogs"
    "Stop Dog Barking on Walks"
    "Stop Dog Barking When Left Alone"
    I had a short phase where i was interested in PR shaping and internal linking structure, but to be honest, it's a total waste of time and you would need to show me a BENEFIT of going to the hassles of "siloing" a site.

    If anything, you are totally overthinking this and possible make things even worse.

    The above looks like keyword stuffing to me almost, i have seen websites where people repeated "bread maker" 900 times on the front page with 100 categories "panasonic bread maker" , "samsung bread maker" and WHATEVER BRAND IMAGINABLE bread maker categories in the navigation.

    Such sites look VERY over-SEOd and they won't do you any good, at all.

    There is no reason to "siloing" since a modern CMS like wordpress gives you plenty of means to use GOOD, meaningful and related categories....and for interlinking posts IN MY OPINION tags are already sufficient and very effective.

    I can almost guarantee you that we could do a challenge and you spend weeks figuring out a "clever" silo structure - and in the same time i am getting the same (or better results) by having good categories and tags on my content plus excerpt/archive pages without the overthinking of internal silo structure and PR flow.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by GeorgR. View Post

      I had a short phase where i was interested in PR shaping and internal linking structure, but to be honest, it's a total waste of time and you would need to show me a BENEFIT of going to the hassles of "siloing" a site.

      If anything, you are totally overthinking this and possible make things even worse.

      The above looks like keyword stuffing to me almost, i have seen websites where people repeated "bread maker" 900 times on the front page with 100 categories "panasonic bread maker" , "samsung bread maker" and WHATEVER BRAND IMAGINABLE bread maker categories in the navigation.

      Such sites look VERY over-SEOd and they won't do you any good, at all.

      There is no reason to "siloing" since a modern CMS like wordpress gives you plenty of means to use GOOD, meaningful and related categories....and for interlinking posts IN MY OPINION tags are already sufficient and very effective.

      I can almost guarantee you that we could do a challenge and you spend weeks figuring out a "clever" silo structure - and in the same time i am getting the same (or better results) by having good categories and tags on my content plus excerpt/archive pages without the overthinking of internal silo structure and PR flow.
      First I'm not getting into a pissing match, but I will respond to your comment above.

      These are example page titles, don't get so hung up on being negative & nitpicking. It's not keyword stuffing, it's called filler text. Would it make you feel better If we used Lorem Ipsum as filler text/titles?

      I have parent page called "Stop Dog Barking"

      under that there is "Stop Dog Barking in the Crate"
      "Stop Dog Barking at Night"
      "Stop Dogs Barking at Other Dogs"
      "Stop Dog Barking on Walks"
      "Stop Dog Barking When Left Alone"

      Such sites look VERY over-SEOd and they won't do you any good, at all.
      Lol, dream on, ha, ha.

      That's the attitude about default WP themes I like, my competition thinks the same way. The rest of us appreciate the lack of understanding on-page SEO.


      I can almost guarantee you that we could do a challenge and you spend weeks figuring out a "clever" silo structure - and in the same time i am getting the same (or better results) by having good categories and tags on my content plus excerpt/archive pages without the overthinking of internal silo structure and PR flow.
      The comment about WP-Tags tells me instantly that you don't know what your talking about. I've seen enough.

      Thanks for the amusing comment.
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  • Profile picture of the author GeorgR.
    haha yukon, in a bad mood today?

    Tell me about the alleged benefit, and i mean a REAL benefit beyond "internal PR flow" and PR shaping?

    And yes i do know what i am talking about because SILOing is mainly for interlinking/categorizing content in an allegedly "elaborate" matter...but you can do that as well by using categories, tags and archive pages IN A CLEVER WAY.

    What else do you think are tags used for in a CMS? To INTERLINK/categorize content! --> as in C.ontent M.anagement S.ystem

    It might not appear as "elaborate" as your SILO structure...but it can be used to do powerful things in terms of rankings, establishing an authority site etc... and categorizing content in a meaningful, smart way.

    Edit: Just to make this clear...we are on the same page here since we both obviously agree that it's about clever site structure/categories and internal linking.

    What i am saying is merely i do not need any special plugins (beyond the usual ones), themes etc. or whatever other resources to do all this with given resources "out of the box"...since the END RESULT seems to be the same (more or less) whether someone calls it "SILOing" and the other one maybe "good site structure"...maybe that's where the discrepancy is.

    In the past i came across several plugins and "silo system" where i am simply saying you do not need them.
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  • Profile picture of the author outwest
    In order to pull off a good silo though
    you must know the structure and even in Yukons flowchart, the link structure is not clearly defined

    its there but you have to look closely
    then there is the programming skill and knowledge to pull it off, most people including myself do not possess this
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  • Profile picture of the author 3000
    Just wondering what would happen if you linked all your catagory pages and supporting pages to your home page and then linked your home page to all your catagory pages and supporting pages, creating a circle?
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  • Profile picture of the author Saito
    Thank you SO much as well for the detail, charts, and concrete examples.

    My Nav Bar, Sidebar links, and footer links (same on every page of the site) all currently link to the Homepage and the 4 Landing Pages/Green pages/2nd-tier keywords.

    These top 5 keywords have some similar words among them, but not as cut and dry as "Real Estate Forum," Real Estate Articles," etc. (not my actual keywords, btw)

    I have pages for each of these 5 set up and am now creating supporting posts for each of the 2nd-tier Landing Pages. Each of these supporting pages will link to their 2nd-tier page as well as each other, and the 2nd-tier pages will link to all of the supporting pages.

    I plan on putting these internal links in the content of each page as well as manually listing links to these related supporting pages at the bottom of each post.

    So my question is...Is it less effective to have 2nd-tier pages link to each other? What other choice do I really have when choosing links for my Nav bar, Sidebar, and Footer?

    By using these 3 areas for links to my root keyword and 4 2nd-tier keywords, there will be links from all supporting pages to other 2nd-tier pages as well as the homepage.

    Am I good to go with doing this PLUS silo'd links in the content and related posts sections? Or should I ONLY link pages within a silo to each other and make the Nav Bar, Sidebar, and Footer links all nofollow?
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  • Profile picture of the author eshapard
    According to silo theory, yes, it is less effective to have your landing pages link to each other because it makes it a little harder for search engines to figure out what these pages are about.

    I'm pretty happy with using breadcrumbs. You can see an example at the top of the warrior forum ( internet marketing forums > warrior forum > Adsense/PPC/etc.... )

    People are pretty used to these, so user navigation shouldn't be confusing.

    The one bummer is what if someone came to your landing page about chocolate chip cookies, got bored and left; but they would have stayed if they saw a link to the macaroons category?

    Well how likely do you think that is?

    Silo structure is a bit at odds with user experience, so you have to compromise.
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    • Profile picture of the author Henlus
      Originally Posted by eshapard View Post

      According to silo theory, yes, it is less effective to have your landing pages link to each other because it makes it a little harder for search engines to figure out what these pages are about.

      I'm pretty happy with using breadcrumbs. You can see an example at the top of the warrior forum ( internet marketing forums > warrior forum > Adsense/PPC/etc.... )

      People are pretty used to these, so user navigation shouldn't be confusing.

      The one bummer is what if someone came to your landing page about chocolate chip cookies, got bored and left; but they would have stayed if they saw a link to the macaroons category?

      Well how likely do you think that is?

      Silo structure is a bit at odds with user experience, so you have to compromise.
      if supporting pages can link to landing pages, why can't landing pages link to each other?
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  • Profile picture of the author outwest
    Silo landing pages should NOT link to each other
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  • Profile picture of the author petersonzoya
    So....I'm probably kicking a dead horse here but to be super clear....only the silo parent page is linked to from the main index, and then a link back to main index from the parent? I guess the idea is that all link juice from the main index will flow into the child pages through the parent page?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by petersonzoya View Post

      So....I'm probably kicking a dead horse here but to be super clear....only the silo parent page is linked to from the main index, and then a link back to main index from the parent? I guess the idea is that all link juice from the main index will flow into the child pages through the parent page?
      Actually it's more about creating multiple authority pages for multiple keywords.

      You could NOINDEX an Index page & still rank the rest of the pages on the site. The Index page is just another web page, a page is a page, just depends on what you want to do with the page. Just saying.

      The reason most Index pages usually have stronger authority than the rest of the internal pages is simply that most sites link back to the Index page via header/footer links across the entire site.

      This is why I tell people to not get so hung up on EMDs, really who trys to rank a single keyword per site?

      You can control link flow with a few things like javascript, iframes, etc..., you just have to be careful with whatever your monetizing the site with (Adsense, etc...) & use some common sense so that your not violating their TOS If they happen to do a manual site review.
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  • Profile picture of the author outwest
    My best knowledge of Silo linking structure is this

    Index page links OUT to all the Silo landing pages

    Each Silo landing page is the mother page for that Silo

    The Silo landing page links out to each post in Its Silo
    Each Post in the Silo links out to each other post in that silo (kind of like a wheel) and Each post also links BACK to the Silo Landing page

    Each Post in the Silo DOES NOT link to Other Silo Posts in other Silos,
    Each Silo Landing Page DOES NOT link out to other Silo landing pages

    The Silos kind of are out there on there own, linking back and forth within themselves and Back to the Silo Landing page for THEIR Silo

    The Silo Landing Pages Link Back to Index

    I DONT THINK the Posts within each Silo are supposed to link back to the Index Page for the Site, (I am not 100% sure on this) still trying to verify

    Also theoretically at least , the contact us, privacy policy etc links break the Silo and either should be no followed, or whatever
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  • Profile picture of the author LEIVA
    yukon, can i get a copy of your theme to simplify it, since you already have a working theme. and btw how long will take your new theme to be ready ?

    Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author JammerJones
    I just wanted to step in and firstly support the silo structure and mention something about drop-down menus (since many use them). They can be visually appealing but if you're using them stop and switch to a silo structure. Why are dropdown menus on your site not ideal?

    IMO it's not a good idea because it dilutes page relevancy. If the category page is Stop Dog Barking you only want to link within that silo (either up or down) to Stop Dog Barking at Night, Stop Dog Barking on Walks, Stop Dog Barking at Others, etc. - you don't want to be linking to every other category on your website. Linking your Stop Dog Barking page to similar categories with the same 'stop dog barking' theme is much more beneficial than linking it to dog food, dog training, dog collars, etc. pages. The tighter your themes the better.
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  • Profile picture of the author davidmatk
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author theverysmartguy
      Since I started out on using the silo structure on my websites, I have treated each separate silo as its own website. And that is about as simple an explanation I can really get.

      Each silo is on a specific subject; there is the main page, and then a bunch of "supporting" pages that go with it ( in this case, pages are actually posts since I use a WP theme that allows me to silo my site without leaking it ).

      None of the other sections link to each other at all.

      -- Jeff
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      • Profile picture of the author Kris79
        Originally Posted by theverysmartguy View Post

        Since I started out on using the silo structure on my websites, I have treated each separate silo as its own website. And that is about as simple an explanation I can really get.

        Each silo is on a specific subject; there is the main page, and then a bunch of "supporting" pages that go with it ( in this case, pages are actually posts since I use a WP theme that allows me to silo my site without leaking it ).

        None of the other sections link to each other at all.

        -- Jeff
        I have few questions for you:

        1. Do you use menu in the header? and what kind of links are you putting there?

        2. In your opinion what is better: using WP-posts or WP-pages for constucinting silo?

        3. What types of URLs/permalinks are you using?
        There are 2 types of URL structure:
        a) domain .com/Silo-landing-page/silo-supporting-page
        b) domain .com/silo-supporting-page
        In my opinion since SILO is about internat linking and link structure URL do not matter, and I would go for shorter version. What do you think?


        Kris
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        • Profile picture of the author JammerJones
          Originally Posted by Kris79 View Post

          I have few questions for you:

          1. Do you use menu in the header? and what kind of links are you putting there?

          2. In your opinion what is better: using WP-posts or WP-pages for constucinting silo?

          3. What types of URLs/permalinks are you using?
          There are 2 types of URL structure:
          a) domain .com/Silo-landing-page/silo-supporting-page
          b) domain .com/silo-supporting-page
          In my opinion since SILO is about internat linking and link structure URL do not matter, and I would go for shorter version. What do you think?


          Kris
          1. Yes you want to use menus in the header - use your category links.

          2. Use categories and posts to make your silo. Leave your non-content pages as "pages" (ie: contact us, privacy policy, conditions, etc.)

          3. URLs are a big part of SEO and often times overlooked. In this case your best option is actually domain.com/silo-landing-page/silo-supporting-page.htm.

          Your URLs should be in the same format as your silo structure, it helps clarify things that much more. If you have a movie review posting on your site under 'Homepage > Movies > Movie Reviews > Fight Club Movie Review' your URLs should reflect the same thing: homepage.com/movies/movie-reviews/fight-club.htm

          The .htm at the end of the URL signifies the end of the road to search engines - they will recognize the page as a post. If you remove the .htm it looks like a sub-folder 'domain.com/silo-landing-page/silo-supporting-page/' which is confusing. Think of it like organizing a text file in your My Documents folder: My Documents/Movies/Movie-Reviews/Fight-Club.txt (where .txt acts as .htm). Your organizing a ton of documents and the more sub-folders you use the better - no matter how many.
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        • Profile picture of the author theverysmartguy
          Originally Posted by Kris79 View Post

          I have few questions for you:

          1. Do you use menu in the header? and what kind of links are you putting there?

          2. In your opinion what is better: using WP-posts or WP-pages for constucinting silo?

          3. What types of URLs/permalinks are you using?
          There are 2 types of URL structure:
          a) domain .com/Silo-landing-page/silo-supporting-page
          b) domain .com/silo-supporting-page
          In my opinion since SILO is about internat linking and link structure URL do not matter, and I would go for shorter version. What do you think?


          Kris
          1. I do not put a menu in my header. The menu is in the footer ( this menu is for your page; about us. contact. disclaimer. etc etc. )

          The reason for this is to bring the attention to the content and page itself rather than a menu at the top.

          I also have NO sidebar; this is very important in a silo structure. This is where most of the leakage happens.

          2. Everything should be in posts. The only thing in pages is the required pages: contact, etc etc.

          The reason for this is because in WP, posts are in the rss feed, and without an additional plugin your pages won't be. This is good for promotions, and you dont want those "gibberish" pages in your rss feed anyways, just your content.

          3. I use option "B". Basically for the reason you listed. Siloing is all about the linking structure of your website.

          The reason why I use the silo structure is for 2 main reasons:

          The SEO part, and to make the visitor focus on the content and promotions that are on that page. This is why there is the lack of a menu. I will have a few links at the bottom that point towards other posts in the silo. This is actually automatically done for me with an option for the theme that I use. This allows for interlinking within the Silo, not just to the main page of the Silo.

          This will make it look more natural in the eyes of Google. Because like the backlinks, not every link is going to point towards the a single page.

          -- Jeff
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          • Profile picture of the author JammerJones
            Originally Posted by theverysmartguy View Post

            1. I do not put a menu in my header. The menu is in the footer ( this menu is for your page; about us. contact. disclaimer. etc etc. )

            The reason for this is to bring the attention to the content and page itself rather than a menu at the top.

            I also have NO sidebar; this is very important in a silo structure. This is where most of the leakage happens.

            2. Everything should be in posts. The only thing in pages is the required pages: contact, etc etc.

            The reason for this is because in WP, posts are in the rss feed, and without an additional plugin your pages won't be. This is good for promotions, and you dont want those "gibberish" pages in your rss feed anyways, just your content.

            3. I use option "B". Basically for the reason you listed. Siloing is all about the linking structure of your website.

            The reason why I use the silo structure is for 2 main reasons:

            The SEO part, and to make the visitor focus on the content and promotions that are on that page. This is why there is the lack of a menu. I will have a few links at the bottom that point towards other posts in the silo. This is actually automatically done for me with an option for the theme that I use. This allows for interlinking within the Silo, not just to the main page of the Silo.

            This will make it look more natural in the eyes of Google. Because like the backlinks, not every link is going to point towards the a single page.

            -- Jeff
            I see what you're getting at by not including a nav in the header but at the same time you're sacrificing user experience. You're making it hard for users to find their way around your site. By putting a nav in the header that links only to your main silo pages you're killing two birds with one stone - it's keeping your silo structure in tact and making it easier for users to browse.

            As for the URLs, option B is basically the worst way you could structure your URLs. "In my opinion since SILO is about internat linking and link structure URL do not matter" - I disagree. URLs are extremely important as they help reinforce your site structure. By categorizing everything under your root domain (which is what you're doing with option B) there is no organization. To keep things organized you want your site structure AND URLs to match. So if you have a post called Dog Treats under your Dog Food category you'd want your URL to be: www.dogsite.com/dog-food/dog-treats.html. As I mentioned above - think of sub folders on your site like sub folders in My Documents.

            These are the sorts of things that are overlooked but actually make a big difference.

            Here's a nice article on URL structures if anyone's interested: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2012/01/structured-urls/
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            • Profile picture of the author FlippinIt
              Thanks for all the great info on siloing here. Since I don't use clickbump and thesis, I have a problem with the silo landing page not having unique content on it.

              I found this guide online seodesignsolutions.com/blog/how-to-reference-material/how-to-theme-and-silo-your-wordpress-blog/ . It suggests creating a page named the exact same thing as your category. It claims this page will now override the category. I've tried it, doesn't seem to work. Could it be a theme related problem?
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              • Profile picture of the author theverysmartguy
                Originally Posted by FlippinIt View Post

                Thanks for all the great info on siloing here. Since I don't use clickbump and thesis, I have a problem with the silo landing page not having unique content on it.

                I found this guide online seodesignsolutions.com/blog/how-to-reference-material/how-to-theme-and-silo-your-wordpress-blog/ . It suggests creating a page named the exact same thing as your category. It claims this page will now override the category. I've tried it, doesn't seem to work. Could it be a theme related problem?
                From my experience with WP, the category will always over ride a page if they are named the same. That is, if you have it so that it doesn't say "category/...". Which is what you want to do anyways.

                So, that is a bit of misinformation if that site told you that the page will override the category, its the other way around.

                -- Jeff
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              • Profile picture of the author yukon
                Banned
                Originally Posted by FlippinIt View Post

                Thanks for all the great info on siloing here. Since I don't use clickbump and thesis, I have a problem with the silo landing page not having unique content on it.

                I found this guide online seodesignsolutions.com/blog/how-to-reference-material/how-to-theme-and-silo-your-wordpress-blog/ . It suggests creating a page named the exact same thing as your category. It claims this page will now override the category. I've tried it, doesn't seem to work. Could it be a theme related problem?

                BE very careful with the guys selling Wordpress themes that claim they have silo themes, I see a few already jumping on the silo bandwagon & hyping up their sales pitch for their non-silo themes just to make a quick buck. Know what your buying & why your buying it.

                Some guys are working with Thesis but as far as I know it's $87 per domain, so it's very expensive.

                I'm working on a silo theme, I'm still not sure how I want to wrap this up, all I can say is keep an eye on this thread for updates.

                I took a quick look at that link/article, no way would the new page they created simply override a Category page without doing a 301 redirect which I wouldn't even do to begin with.
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                • Profile picture of the author FlippinIt
                  Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                  BE very careful with the guys selling Wordpress themes that claim they have silo themes, I see a few already jumping on the silo bandwagon & hyping up their sales pitch for their non-silo themes just to make a quick buck. Know what your buying & why your buying it.

                  Some guys are working with Thesis but as far as I know it's $87 per domain, so it's very expensive.

                  I'm working on a silo theme, I'm still not sure how I want to wrap this up, all I can say is keep an eye on this thread for updates.

                  I took a quick look at that link/article, no way would the new page they created simply override a Category page without doing a 301 redirect which I wouldn't even do to begin with.
                  Thanks. Looking forward to your theme.
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                  • Profile picture of the author FlippinIt
                    Genesis theme seems to be an affordable silo structured wordpress theme. Check the demo here hxxp://demo.studiopress.com/genesis/
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                • Profile picture of the author bluefoot
                  Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                  I'm working on a silo theme, I'm still not sure how I want to wrap this up, all I can say is keep an eye on this thread for updates.
                  Yukon,

                  Thanks for all the silo information you've shared here on the Warrior Forum.

                  Are you still working on your silo theme? Do you think it will be available for purchase?

                  Phil B
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            • Profile picture of the author yukon
              Banned
              Originally Posted by JammerJones View Post

              To keep things organized you want your site structure AND URLs to match. So if you have a post called Dog Treats under your Dog Food category you'd want your URL to be: www.dogsite.com/dog-food/dog-treats.html. As I mentioned above - think of sub folders on your site like sub folders in My Documents.

              These are the sorts of things that are overlooked but actually make a big difference.

              Here's a nice article on URL structures if anyone's interested: SEO - 3 Reasons to Always Have Structured URLs - Bruce Clay
              I agree with what your saying as far as the URL structure.

              The site as a whole should be built so it's easy to navigate for traffic & also helps with the on-page SEO (silo).

              I've learned over the last few years that you can't give people lots of options (links) on a page & expect them to follow the money path (Adsense, Amazon, whatever...). You basically need to nudge them in the right direction, without telling them & without the site/pages looking spammy & obvious.
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  • Profile picture of the author LEIVA
    anyone here has a demo site where i can take a look?

    thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark Hoffman
    Nice charts Yukon visualizing things like that definitely makes it much easier to understand things
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Mark Hoffman View Post

      Nice charts Yukon visualizing things like that definitely makes it much easier to understand things
      Thanks Mark,

      The yED graph editor software does help a lot, it's also easy to work with (drag & drop).

      I've used the software to help map out my sites pages before the pages are even built.
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  • Profile picture of the author GGpaul
    Do I need to have a "category?"

    Going back to that savahiehrugs page I noticed the URL would be
    hxxp://www.safaviehrugs.net/safavieh-rugs-collections

    and then there would be an article which would make it hxxp://www.safaviehrugs.net/safavieh-rugs-collections/safavieh-bergama-rugs.html

    Can I just make a keyword let's say (how to get men).
    example hxxp://www.datingtips.com/how-to-get-men

    and I make an article called (how to get hispanic men) but it would be hxxp://www.datingtips.com/how-to-get-hispanic-men

    Or does it need to be hxxp://www.datingtips.com/how-to-get-men/how-to-get-hispanic-men???

    Thanks all.
    Signature

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    • Profile picture of the author theverysmartguy
      Originally Posted by GGpaul View Post

      Do I need to have a "category?"

      Going back to that savahiehrugs page I noticed the URL would be
      hxxp://www.safaviehrugs.net/safavieh-rugs-collections

      and then there would be an article which would make it hxxp://www.safaviehrugs.net/safavieh-rugs-collections/safavieh-bergama-rugs.html

      Can I just make a keyword let's say (how to get men).
      example hxxp://www.datingtips.com/how-to-get-men

      and I make an article called (how to get hispanic men) but it would be hxxp://www.datingtips.com/how-to-get-hispanic-men

      Or does it need to be hxxp://www.datingtips.com/how-to-get-men/how-to-get-hispanic-men???

      Thanks all.
      No you don't need to have it with the category attached to it. I don't, and my silo structure seems to work just fine. ( www.sitename.com/pagename )

      -- Jeff
      Signature

      "Doing nothing is worse than doing it wrong."

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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by GGpaul View Post

      Do I need to have a "category?"

      Going back to that savahiehrugs page I noticed the URL would be
      hxxp://www.safaviehrugs.net/safavieh-rugs-collections

      and then there would be an article which would make it hxxp://www.safaviehrugs.net/safavieh-rugs-collections/safavieh-bergama-rugs.html

      Can I just make a keyword let's say (how to get men).
      example hxxp://www.datingtips.com/how-to-get-men

      and I make an article called (how to get hispanic men) but it would be hxxp://www.datingtips.com/how-to-get-hispanic-men

      Or does it need to be hxxp://www.datingtips.com/how-to-get-men/how-to-get-hispanic-men???

      Thanks all.

      I use the WP Categories because it helps keep the entire site structure themed.

      Example:
      • hxxp://domain.com/
      • hxxp://domain.com/mustang-car-parts/
      • hxxp://domain.com/mustang-car-parts/ford-mustang-alternator-repair-kit/

      I also only nest the pages/URLs one supporting page deep (like above), you don't want a URL that is a mile long.
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      • Profile picture of the author JammerJones
        Originally Posted by GGpaul View Post

        Do I need to have a "category?"

        Can I just make a keyword let's say (how to get men).
        example hxxp://www.datingtips.com/how-to-get-men

        and I make an article called (how to get hispanic men) but it would be hxxp://www.datingtips.com/how-to-get-hispanic-men

        Or does it need to be hxxp://www.datingtips.com/how-to-get-men/how-to-get-hispanic-men???

        Thanks all.
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        I use the WP Categories because it helps keep the entire site structure themed.

        Example:
        • hxxp://domain.com/
        • hxxp://domain.com/mustang-car-parts/
        • hxxp://domain.com/mustang-car-parts/ford-mustang-alternator-repair-kit/

        I also only nest the pages/URLs one supporting page deep (like above), you don't want a URL that is a mile long.
        Agreed. Definitely include the category in the URLs. The max. character limit on URLs is like 1,000 so don't worry about going over. I'd say organize your site in as many sub-folders as you need, not more or less.

        Some might disagree and argue that shorter URLs have a higher CTR in SERPs which is true but it's because if users don't see their keyword in the URL itself they may deem it irrelevant. If you have a proper silo with breadcrumbs and sub-folders to match your site architecture Google will list breadcrumbs in the SERPs for you (ie: datingtips.com > How to Get Men > How to Get Hispanic Men). So to someone searching 'how to get hispanic men' your SERP will look highly relevant. Without breadcrumbs your SERP URL might look like this 'www.datingtips.com/dating-advice/how-to-get-men/how-to...' where the ... is Google cutting your URL short. This is where you might run into problems with CTR. As long as you setup your silo properly you'll be fine.
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  • Profile picture of the author outwest
    Yukon been workin on that theme for a long time
    Signature
    Tech article writing .Native English Speaker(with Proof)
    specializing in SmartPhones , Internet security, high tech gadgets, search engines, tech shows, digital cameras.

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  • Profile picture of the author AskJon
    There's some great nuggets in there, thanks a lot yukon for taking the time to explain how silos work! What I'd like to add concerns the linking question of OP as I feel that some time when people silo they forget to use contextual links which I think is a really important on-page element. Even though if the silos tell Google the "structure" of the website, adding contextual links to the silo "main" page (as well as other page in the silo) still is important as it gives "votes" to these pages and tells google they are the most important pages of the silo. For the same reason, contextual links perform differently than blogroll links.

    What yukon says is awesome (read: god like! ), just wanted to point that up
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by AskJon View Post

      There's some great nuggets in there, thanks a lot yukon for taking the time to explain how silos work! What I'd like to add concerns the linking question of OP as I feel that some time when people silo they forget to use contextual links which I think is a really important on-page element. Even though if the silos tell Google the "structure" of the website, adding contextual links to the silo "main" page (as well as other page in the silo) still is important as it gives "votes" to these pages and tells google they are the most important pages of the silo. For the same reason, contextual links perform differently than blogroll links.

      What yukon says is awesome (read: god like! ), just wanted to point that up
      That's a good point, I've suggested before in this thread or maybe another (I can't keep up ) to include the links in the article footer. This can be automated with WP code (shortcodes) just takes some upfront work on the theme.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dumkist
    How would you silo a site that is about many topics like..

    bodybuilding
    car repair
    Acne
    Finance..etc ?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Dumkist View Post

      How would you silo a site that is about many topics like..

      bodybuilding
      car repair
      Acne
      Finance..etc ?
      With subjects that broad I would make each root keyword a seperate sub-domain, each sub-domain would act as it's own site.

      Examples:
      • hxxp://exercise.about.com/
      • hxxp://autorepair.about.com/
      • hxxp://acne.about.com/
      • hxxp://financialplan.about.com/

      Google will look at each sub-domain like a separate site, example:

      site:financialplan.about.com - Google Search
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  • Profile picture of the author Dumkist
    I could also use folders to correct ?...now if I'm using word press I would just create links on the side panel linking to each sub domain or folder correct ?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Dumkist View Post

      I could also use folders to correct ?...now if I'm using word press I would just create links on the side panel linking to each sub domain or folder correct ?
      I'm not sure I follow you on the folders, unless it's an html site?

      IMO the thing that matters most is you keep the entire site themed on the same subject, it just makes everything easier as far as SEO, & traffic. Example, traffic looking for weight loss products most likely won't care about other pages on the site If they are related to auto insurance.

      If you have to have such broad topics, I would go with a simple sub-domain, again each sub-domain would be it's own niche/keywords.
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  • Profile picture of the author LEIVA
    yukon, and how about having a silo site with daily fresh content let's said a least 1 post per day.

    For example a silo website with 4 silo/pages and each silo page is supported by 4 post.

    So i want to add a least 1 post daily or week so at the end of the year i will have lot of post supporting each's silo.

    Because as the deep the silo page goes will making the silo more less powerful or will be more powerful.

    Thanks a lot
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  • Profile picture of the author marco005
    Hi,

    wich keywords I must use in a silo for ranking?

    The categorie keywords? The inner pages?
    Or all pages, also categories keywords and the blogarticles in the categorie?

    So when all categories plus inner pages mus rank, that's will be an expensive investment to buy fiverr links or 100 SB links for every categorie and inner pages.

    marco005
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  • Profile picture of the author nem0zdad
    Thanks to everyone (especially yukon) for all of the great info on siloing.

    What I've learned
    The goal is to create a site that's homepage points at targeted keyword segregated category (silo) pages which then link to high quality posts within those categories. Posts only link to other posts within their silo and the silo parent page.

    Also, do not use junky/cutesy sidebar features like "Recent Posts" which cross link across silos. That said, a "Related Posts" within the category/silo is fine though... and a good idea).

    Yukon mentioned using iframes for footers to prevent rank dilution for footer links like disclosures... which brings me to:

    What I still don't get
    After all of this attention to detail and not cross-linking between silos we've still got global nav on all of the site's page including posts (for UX reasons). I think most here agree that optimizing just for the SE's (and not for people) won't work anymore. So... if each post has global nav then isn't each post cross linking to each of the top-level category/silo pages as well as the homepage? Isn't this a bad idea ("passing UP" link juice when the goal seems to be passing it DOWN through silos)?

    Solutions?
    - Nofollow on global navigation (on post pages only perhaps)?
    - Some javascript trick to create global nav for users but hide it from GoogleBot (seems dangerous as the G hates cloaking)?
    - Something else?

    Ideas anyone?

    Thanks in advance.
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    • Profile picture of the author hotftuna
      I'm new to the silo strategy. My plan is to link new articles within a silo to the articles above, with the only link to that article from the top sub-topic page in that silo. Please see my flowchart and let me know if this will work.
      Signature
      HeDir.com ranks #1 for "human edited web directory"


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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by hotftuna View Post

        I'm new to the silo strategy. My plan is to link new articles within a silo to the articles above, with the only link to that article from the top sub-topic page in that silo. Please see my flowchart and let me know if this will work.
        Your nesting the links way too deep, IMO.
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        • Profile picture of the author Michael_Le
          Banned
          great posts yukon. anyone that advocates silo sites has my attention, subbed!!
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  • Profile picture of the author a3000
    I understand the whole concept of siloing, but have been puzzled about siloing for a small niche site.

    Scenario:
    Let's say I am building a site for a particular brand, let call it ShakeBrand - its a weight loss shake.

    the domain name owned is awesomeshake.com (example)

    looking up adwords for research, i see that the following terms are searched for often:

    shakebrand recipes
    shakebrand reviews
    shakebrand ingredients
    buy shakebrand


    I want to rank high for ShakeBrand, would I structure the site like this:

    awesomeshake.com
    /shakebrand
    /shakebrand-recipes
    /shakebrand-reviews
    /shakebrand-ingredients
    /buy-shakebrand

    With the site only being 1 silo? or do I break up each searched term into its own silo?
    Would the home page have a small amount of content for ShakeBrand and a link to /shakebrand?

    I would also be writing articles such as "Top 10 Shake Recipes" - would that go under the /shake-brand category or is that too deep and the better option is to make it its own silo?

    Thanks for your help.
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  • Profile picture of the author OneManSEO
    Yukon, Very informative information....I really enjoyed catching up on this thread. Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author buyandsellit
    Great information yukon
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  • Profile picture of the author End2End
    Great content Yukon, Amazing read and now I am even more confused, LOL, Just kidding.

    I do have a silly question though. I read many people bothered about applying Silo to WP. Now the question is, does this concept of Silo works on normal websites also?

    I know it is silly but wanted to confirm.

    Thanks in advance.

    VV
    Signature
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  • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
    I've been using a modified structure (sort of similar, but not as strict) for a few months now. Doing great, have over 160 pages of content and going strong. Barely done any link building. Get between 3000-4000 uniques a day, less on weekends.

    You can create a silo structure using any theme, it's not difficult. All you need is a couple plugins and a bit of custom code for your category pages.

    Edit: the site gets ****loads of long-tail traffic. Top keywords bring in maybe 20%-25% of all SE traffic.
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    • Profile picture of the author mraffiliate
      3 to 4,000 unique's a day is fantastic. Do you monetize this site at all?


      Originally Posted by bnetwork View Post

      I've been using a modified structure (sort of similar, but not as strict) for a few months now. Doing great, have over 160 pages of content and going strong. Barely done any link building. Get between 3000-4000 uniques a day, less on weekends.

      You can create a silo structure using any theme, it's not difficult. All you need is a couple plugins and a bit of custom code for your category pages.

      Edit: the site gets ****loads of long-tail traffic. Top keywords bring in maybe 20%-25% of all SE traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
    Interesting examples. I use a different method, but similar.
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    My Guitar Website | My SEO Blog - Advertising spots available.

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  • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
    ^ what's your reasoning behind this strategy?

    I'm just saying... a lot of folk are throwing words like "silo" around with absolutely no logic behind their concepts. A "tight" internal linking structure can be good OR it can be completely useless.
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  • Profile picture of the author hotftuna
    Reasoning is that each new article builds on the articles above it.

    Quite frankly, reading posts on silo I have seen different link strategies and I'm not sure how to best use this method.
    Signature
    HeDir.com ranks #1 for "human edited web directory"


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    • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
      Originally Posted by hotftuna View Post

      Reasoning is that each new article builds on the articles above it.

      Quite frankly, reading posts on silo I have seen different link strategies and I'm not sure how to best use this method.
      And what are you trying to achieve with this? Send more link juice/authority to those pages (if so, which ones?) or something else?

      I'm just trying to understand your question tbh.
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      • Profile picture of the author Ves
        I too am VERY greatful to Yukon (and others) for the excellent explanations and charts in this thread.

        I would be very happy to buy a silo theme from you Yukon - is it any nearer to completion? I really hope so, as I have a project in the pipeline.


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      • Profile picture of the author hotftuna
        Originally Posted by bnetwork View Post

        And what are you trying to achieve with this? Send more link juice/authority to those pages (if so, which ones?) or something else?

        I'm just trying to understand your question tbh.
        Yes I am trying to increase authority in the top pages one click from the home page.

        I am using WP with all navigation stripped (archives, categories, recent posts). All links are within text content.
        Signature
        HeDir.com ranks #1 for "human edited web directory"


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        • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
          Originally Posted by hotftuna View Post

          Yes I am trying to increase authority in the top pages one click from the home page.

          I am using WP with all navigation stripped (archives, categories, recent posts). All links are within text content.
          Sorry I completely missed your question/answer. To increase PR flow to those pages, use a structure like this:

          http://www.flipflopsandwebsites.com/...aph-flow-2.jpg

          You can modify it by dropping the links from inner pages to the homepage or by removing interlinking between inner pages in each "silo". I don't do this, because user experience > slight PR flow gains.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael_Le
    Banned
    Question for Yukon,

    why do you have posts as the supporting pages as opposed to pages? is there any difference?

    thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    Yeah curious as well when the theme comes out, any date?
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael_Le
    Banned
    anyone figure out how to use a category page as a post or page? i know thesis theme can but i was looking for a wp plugin.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alex Barboza
      Originally Posted by Michael_Le View Post

      anyone figure out how to use a category page as a post or page? i know thesis theme can but i was looking for a wp plugin.
      I think you can do this with the Seo Ultimate plugin. Just make sure to choose the option that removes the category base and set it to give more authority to pages than to categories. Then you create the page with the same name of the category.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael_Le
    Banned
    a question for Yukon or anyone else that has experience with silos, i came across this on another site and the diagram seems different from Yukons one.

    so this one has a silo, then category then post, so is the silo a page or category page?, if its a category page then shouldnt the next in line which is the category page be a sub-category page?


    confused.....
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    • Profile picture of the author kromos01
      Originally Posted by Michael_Le View Post

      a question for Yukon or anyone else that has experience with silos, i came across this on another site and the diagram seems different from Yukons one.

      so this one has a silo, then category then post, so is the silo a page or category page?, if its a category page then shouldnt the next in line which is the category page be a sub-category page?


      confused.....
      As far as I know, a Silo is a Silo, hence, a category landing page which has several sub-caterory pages (or post) to reinforce its theme.

      By the way, thanks a lot for your answers on this thread Yukon, I've learned a lot from you
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      • Profile picture of the author niiche
        How do you create multiple silos below the index page.


        In the diagram there are 4 silos


        Is the SILO a category/page
        Is the CATEGORY just a category
        Are posts just posts


        I have 3 primary keywords
        9 midtail keywords (3 for each primary keyword)
        45 longtails ( 5 for each midtails)

        I want to create 3 silos under each primary keyword using the midtail keywords and longtails and also must be able to write a page or post for every keyword.



        niiche
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Michael_Le View Post

      a question for Yukon or anyone else that has experience with silos, i came across this on another site and the diagram seems different from Yukons one.

      so this one has a silo, then category then post, so is the silo a page or category page?, if its a category page then shouldnt the next in line which is the category page be a sub-category page?


      confused.....
      The screenshot is simply nesting a little deeper than what I do. I keep it simple like this:




      • Index page
        • Category page
          • Supporting page
          • Supporting page
          • Supporting page
          • Supporting page
          • Supporting page
          • Supporting page
          • Supporting page
          • Supporting page
          • Supporting page
          • Supporting page
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      • Profile picture of the author Michael_Le
        Banned
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        The screenshot is simply nesting a little deeper than what I do. I keep it simple like this:




        • Index page
          • Category page
            • Supporting page
            • Supporting page
            • Supporting page
            • Supporting page
            • Supporting page
            • Supporting page
            • Supporting page
            • Supporting page
            • Supporting page
            • Supporting page
        cheers Yukon, trying to find info on this subject is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, not much about on the net, and when i do find it, it either doesnt explain it very well or makes me even more confused. but since reading your post's on the other silo thread and this and doing my own research, i think i've got the jizz of it now.....i have already started using this way of building my sites.........
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  • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
    ^^ those structures are absolutely horrible for user experience and offer so little internal PR benefit it's laughable... someone really needs to spend less time drawing pretty graphs - there's a lot more to internal structure than this, lol.
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    • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
      Originally Posted by bnetwork View Post

      ^^ those structures are absolutely horrible for user experience and offer so little internal PR benefit it's laughable... someone really needs to spend less time drawing pretty graphs - there's a lot more to internal structure than this, lol.
      I agree in many ways, this is enough to give me a headache with all the other stuff I can think of. I would personally only use such a structure on a small tightly grouped site of around 40 pages, anything bigger, well unless you have the time to sit around and think about internal linking, if you have a site like Huffington Post then it's a different matter but do they even care?

      I just link up as I go stuffing as many links that it's not too overwelming to the last few posts and possibly a few here or there to a few pages I feel are bit more valuable or I'm trying to promote (more competitive). Working well so far.
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  • Profile picture of the author deezn
    Everytime I read about silo's I get confused.

    It's as if everyone has a different definition for silo, so there really is no silo method lol.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael_Le
    Banned
    yo Yukon, still about? could do with some of your expertise
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  • Profile picture of the author wealthPowerTeam
    Nice Silo chart. This really helps in giving a visual when structuring your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author jodiesmitham
    Guys, just need some help understanding this.

    I am amalgamating some small sites of mine and am having trouble working out how best to link the content as the sites were review sites on different products. Let's say I have reviewed kettles and mattresses using the keywords 'kettle reviews' and 'mattress reviews'. Would I need to create further parent categories like 'kitchen' or 'bedroom'? I don't want to write (or rank) for such broad terms, but would I have to create something like:

    Index
    Kitchen
    Kettle Reviews
    Kettle Review Posts

    as opposed to

    Index
    Kettle Reviews
    Kettle Review posts

    I don't want to rank for 'Kitchen' but it seems as though I should include these parent categories in order to tie up all my content...
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  • Profile picture of the author Saito
    Epic post, guys, I keep coming back to it for more. Questions:

    1) In creating URLs for your 3rd-tier pages, does it matter if the 2nd-tier keywords are repeated too much? I don't want to risk over-optimizing the site. And does the order the keywords appear matter or just so long as they are all in the URL?

    Ex:
    a) dog.com/stop-dog-barking/stop-dog-barking-at-night/
    b) dog.com/stop-dog-barking/at-night/



    2) Let's say I have my 2nd-tier keyword content page. Does it need to be the parent of the 3rd-tier pages in the silo? Or just link together?

    Reason being...in my Optimize Press theme it appears I can't control the text that appears in the Nav Bar links. It is the page title (which can be very long) or nothing.

    So for this second tier page, I want the URL to look like this but the page title is a lot longer than 3 words:
    www.dog.com/stop-dog-barking/

    So I figured the simplest way is to make a page whose name will appear in the Nav Bar as "Stop Dog Barking" (and have a URL like www.dog.com/stop-dog-barking/) except it would redirect to the 2nd-tier keyword content page I want people to visit.

    All the other pages in the silo would link to this 2nd-tier content page and each other as discussed, but all the 3rd-tier pages would need to have the "Stop Dog Barking" redirect Nav Bar page as their parent page (because I'm using dropdown pages in the Nav Bar) and not the page the content is on, so that their URLs will all look like www.dog.com/stop-dog-barking/Postname

    Will this work?

    And what URL would I choose for the 2nd-tier content page? (Since www.dog.com/stop-dog-barking/ is taken, being used for the redirect page in the Nav Bar)

    Maybe I should just name the content page www.dog.com/stop-dog-barking/ and get a programmer to make my Nav Bar links say what the hell I want them to.
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  • Does anyone know if this can be implemented in Joomla?
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim_Hawksworth
    Hi

    Just read the whole of this thread because I am implementing SILO structure on my websites.

    Yukon - I noticed that you posted TWO images of SILO structures
    BUT they are different.

    Here was your first:



    And the second one:




    In the first one the links from the supports pages go direct to the
    Category page.

    In the second diagram you have linked the support pages NOT to the
    Category page but daisy chained them so that only the FIRST support page is linked to the category page.

    These two diagrams seem quite different to me

    Which one is the best SILO structure ?

    Thanks.

    .
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    • Profile picture of the author palpatine
      Originally Posted by Tim_Hawksworth View Post

      Hi

      These two diagrams seem quite different to me

      Which one is the best SILO structure ?

      .
      Looks the same to me. Just a couple more category pages.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Tim_Hawksworth View Post

      Hi

      Just read the whole of this thread because I am implementing SILO structure on my websites.

      Yukon - I noticed that you posted TWO images of SILO structures
      BUT they are different.

      Here was your first:



      And the second one:




      In the first one the links from the supports pages go direct to the
      Category page.

      In the second diagram you have linked the support pages NOT to the
      Category page but daisy chained them so that only the FIRST support page is linked to the category page.

      These two diagrams seem quite different to me

      Which one is the best SILO structure ?

      Thanks.

      .

      The only difference is the larger image has additional sub-categories nested below the 1st landing page. I guess I should have drawn the link flow arrows off to the side like I did the 1st image. Link flow is still the same. I don't advise that you nest the sub-categories too deep, unless you absolutely have to, makes for a bad user experience when the URL is a mile long & multiple sub-categories under a single main category.
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  • Profile picture of the author srodoks
    how about doing it on html no-wordpress can be better or is practically the same thing??
    thnks
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by srodoks View Post

      how about doing it on html no-wordpress can be better or is practically the same thing??
      thnks

      That's already been answered on the 2nd page of this thread.
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      • Profile picture of the author Tim_Hawksworth
        Thanks for your reply.

        That's all been answered in this thread & probably similar threads.

        Keep it simple, the larger flow chart was for another forum member that asked a question about sub-categories.
        Just to be sure:
        So you are recommending the linking in Diagram 1.
        ALL supporting pages are linking to and from the Green category page
        and NOT to each other.
        ??



        Thanks.

        BTW thanks for the diagram drawing link - I downloaded it and will be playing with it a bit later on.


        Tim.

        .
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        • Profile picture of the author Karribu
          Originally Posted by Tim_Hawksworth View Post

          Thanks for your reply.



          Just to be sure:
          So you are recommending the linking in Diagram 1.
          ALL supporting pages are linking to and from the Green category page
          and NOT to each other.
          ??



          Thanks.

          BTW thanks for the diagram drawing link - I downloaded it and will be playing with it a bit later on.


          Tim.

          .
          Actually I could really do with this clearing up also. Do the articles link to each other as well as the category page or do they only link to the category page?

          cheers.
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Karribu View Post

            Do the articles link to each other as well as the category page
            Yes they do, but you don't want a thousand links (exaggerated example) on a page, so you need to think about creating groups of pages that are easy to manage as far as links go.

            A good example is how howstuffworks.com used to have their page setup, not sure why they changed to their current page, the old setup was better for SEO (keyword anchor-text links). Check this page out.





            Instead of creating a single 10,000 word page (or whatever) they broke the subject up into multiple same subject pages, then used keyword anchor-text to connect all the internal pages, just the same as If your reading a paper book, each web page is like a summary of a paper book chapter. The key is relevancy.
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  • Profile picture of the author PacMan3000
    I have a couple questions about Siloing:

    1) Why is this much different than, say, just activating a Related Posts plugin to your website? I understand that we want some of these siloed pages to rank in the search engines, but if it's ultimately all about internal linking, doesn't the Related Posts plugin do that?

    2) Let's say I go with the silo method--should I then remove the Related Posts plugin? Is that overkill? Would that be way too many internal linking systems going on?

    3) In Yukon's diagram--what is the red "Index Page?" Is that the site's home page? And if so, are we suggesting that the index page has to always link to each and every supporting page (green box in diagram) that we create?

    4) Ultimately, this silo process is something we can simply do manually correct--we don't need to "code" anything? Meaning, it's all about carving out time in the day to, essentially, create pages and link properly within your site?

    5) Lastly, when we link from the support pages (green) to the categories (yellow)...can the category related articles we're linking to be posts rather than pages? I already have loads of content on my site, but all my articles are posts--not pages.

    Does that matter? I don't have to go back through my site and convert all these posts into pages to do the siloing, correct?

    Thanks.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by PacMan3000 View Post

      I have a couple questions about Siloing:

      1) Why is this much different than, say, just activating a Related Posts plugin to your website? I understand that we want some of these siloed pages to rank in the search engines, but if it's ultimately all about internal linking, doesn't the Related Posts plugin do that?

      2) Let's say I go with the silo method--should I then remove the Related Posts plugin? Is that overkill? Would that be way too many internal linking systems going on?

      3) In Yukon's diagram--what is the red "Index Page?" Is that the site's home page? And if so, are we suggesting that the index page has to always link to each and every supporting page (green box in diagram) that we create?

      4) Ultimately, this silo process is something we can simply do manually correct--we don't need to "code" anything? Meaning, it's all about carving out time in the day to, essentially, create pages and link properly within your site?

      5) Lastly, when we link from the support pages (green) to the categories (yellow)...can the category related articles we're linking to be posts rather than pages? I already have loads of content on my site, but all my articles are posts--not pages.

      Does that matter? I don't have to go back through my site and convert all these posts into pages to do the siloing, correct?

      Thanks.

      1) It's not just about adding links to web pages, it's also about not having unrelated links on those same pages. If you had an automotive parts website you wouldn't want to be selling pistons on a web page that's main purpose was to sell car stereo's. Most people that run blogs just slap anything & everything on a page (links/text) in the header, sidebar, footer, etc... which isn't focused.

      2) You remove the links that aren't focused like in #1 above.

      3) Yes, the Index page is the Home page. Link to Silo landing pages (main Category pages). Supporting pages support the Silo landing page, the Silo landing pages support the Index/Home page.

      4) That's up to each individual person/webmaster, you have to code the page to make the finished HTML do whatever you want it to do.

      5) The yellow pages in the diagram are supporting pages, the green is the Silo landing page (main category page). I only use WP-Post because that's how I setup my WP-themes (my preference) the end results for both WP-Post & WP-Pages are all HTML. Google reads HTML, they don't care about what WP calls a web page.

      Related silo category main page forum thread.

      If your already ranking pages, be careful what you change on the site/pages. Hyperlinks, URLs, & text are what rank pages, don't go in & overhaul a sites structure (especially URLs) If your not sure about what your doing. If it's a new site & not already ranking, you can tweak the site structure all day long until you have the site setup like you want.
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  • Profile picture of the author Karribu
    Thanks for the reply dude! +10 Karribu points
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    • Profile picture of the author Karribu
      Yukon,

      Or anyone who can help me with another question please. I've got a design for a sight which is a silo. It consists of a main page, four category landing pages and four to seven posts in each category page. There is no cross linking so its a perfect silo.

      There are a couple of no follow links on the footer.

      But I was just wondering....

      On the main page, there are 52 links. These links go to a page with information about a job and links (anywhere from 1 to 27) to .gov or .edu sites.

      Should I be 'nofollowing' these links? Or does it matter because they are on top of the pyramid so to speak. The reason Im asking is because I'm not sure if it will mess up the silo, and that I've heard mixed things about 'nofollow' links. Some say they are fine and others say they burn t he PR of the page they are on because the page doesn't add anything juice-wise.

      Anyone who can clear these questions up for me please?

      Thanks.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Karribu View Post

        Yukon,

        Or anyone who can help me with another question please. I've got a design for a sight which is a silo. It consists of a main page, four category landing pages and four to seven posts in each category page. There is no cross linking so its a perfect silo.

        There are a couple of no follow links on the footer.

        But I was just wondering....

        On the main page, there are 52 links. These links go to a page with information about a job and links (anywhere from 1 to 27) to .gov or .edu sites.

        Should I be 'nofollowing' these links? Or does it matter because they are on top of the pyramid so to speak. The reason Im asking is because I'm not sure if it will mess up the silo, and that I've heard mixed things about 'nofollow' links. Some say they are fine and others say they burn t he PR of the page they are on because the page doesn't add anything juice-wise.

        Anyone who can clear these questions up for me please?

        Thanks.

        If you trust the link, there's no reason to nofollow.

        I would defiantly make sure to open all external links (only external links) in a new browser tab/window with:

        HTML Code:
        target="_blank"
        This way the traffic will always have your own webpage open in a browser tab/window, gives you the possibility of a 2nd chance to make a sale.
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  • Profile picture of the author Karribu
    Cheers bud, have another 10 points <3
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Karribu View Post

      Cheers bud, have another 10 points <3

      So that's a total of +20 Karribu points, how do I cash these things in?
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      • Profile picture of the author Karribu
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        So that's a total of +20 Karribu points, how do I cash these things in?
        Haven't figured that out yet, but you are the only one to have any so far!
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        • Profile picture of the author AmazonGuy
          If having the site siloed but on the article pages you don't have links to the other articles in the silo other then the main category will these dilute your rankings ?
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          • Profile picture of the author panic
            Say your site is large and you have silo and sub silo pages before supporting pages...so the link down to a supporting page would look like:

            doginfo.com/best-dog-breeds/labrador-dog-breeds/white-labrador-dog

            So we are 4 levels deep and the URL is absolutely stuffed with keywords. Is this going to cause harm?

            What I was thinking was to use a non-keyword domain name, and instead of labrador-dog-breeds just use labrador so URL would look like

            juujoo.com/best-dog-breeds/labrador/white-lab

            Am I better off with the more concise less stuffed URL structure or should I go with the one that is more descriptive and keyword intensive?

            I have a second question regarding Keyword Stuffing:

            Given your landing page category keyword is 'best dog breeds' would creating the following supporting pages be considered stuffing?:
            1. best dog breed
            2. best dogs breed
            3. best dog breed 2013

            Keep in mind the URL could be as keywordy as:
            -doginfo.com/best-dog-breeds/best-dog-breed-2013
            Signature

            ~

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            • Profile picture of the author shafiqkamal
              Originally Posted by panic View Post

              Say your site is large and you have silo and sub silo pages before supporting pages...so the link down to a supporting page would look like:

              doginfo.com/best-dog-breeds/labrador-dog-breeds/white-labrador-dog

              So we are 4 levels deep and the URL is absolutely stuffed with keywords. Is this going to cause harm?

              What I was thinking was to use a non-keyword domain name, and instead of labrador-dog-breeds just use labrador so URL would look like

              juujoo.com/best-dog-breeds/labrador/white-lab

              Am I better off with the more concise less stuffed URL structure or should I go with the one that is more descriptive and keyword intensive?

              I have a second question regarding Keyword Stuffing:

              Given your landing page category keyword is 'best dog breeds' would creating the following supporting pages be considered stuffing?:
              1. best dog breed
              2. best dogs breed
              3. best dog breed 2013

              Keep in mind the URL could be as keywordy as:
              -doginfo.com/best-dog-breeds/best-dog-breed-2013
              IMHO, that's some keyword stuffing you have on your url. It's better to have your designated page keyword closer to your website root url. So instead of this,

              doginfo.com/best-dog-breeds/labrador-dog-breeds/white-labrador-dog

              you can do this,

              doginfo.com/white-labrador-dog

              My reason for this is so that readers and crawlers will have to go through lesser clicks to go through your page. Also, if you are familiar with pagination, you might want to do this:

              o Try to link to as many pages of the pagination structure as possible without breaking the 100(ish) links per page limit
              o Show newer content at the top of the results list when possible, as this means the most link juice will flow to newer articles that need it (and are temporally relevant)
              o Use and link to relevant/related categories & subcategories to help keep link juice flowing throughout the site
              o Link back to the top results from each of the paginated URLs

              And avoid this:

              o Show only a few surrounding paginated links from paginated URLs - you want the engines to be able to crawl deeper from inside the structure
              o Link to only the pages at the front and end of the paginated listings; this will flow all the juice to the start and end of results, ingnoring the middle
              o Try to randomize the paginated results shown in an effort to distribute link juice; you want a static site architecture the engines can crawl
              o Try to use AJAX to get deeper in the results sets - engines follow small snippets of Javascript (sometimes), but they're not at a point where this is an SEO best practice
              o Go over the top trying to get every paginated result linked-to, as this can appear both spammy and unusably ugly


              PS: Hope it answers your question and correct me if I'm wrong.
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          • Profile picture of the author affilliate-script
            [DELETED]
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  • Profile picture of the author nealh
    I have a question regarding my articles for my silo.

    I have a low comp keyword that I aim to rank for and will set this as a silo lanmding page, the problem I have is creating articles in the silo for related keywords as I can only find 2 other long tails to write content about.

    Other keywords found in the "searches related to:" section and google keyword tool become off topic.

    The keyword I wish to rank for is locally targeted, for example - Tool Hire Devon (not related to my real keyword)

    How do I generate content ideas to make sure my silo structure remains tight. I am struggling to create 10 supporting articles arround the KW

    Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author Wieli
      Originally Posted by nealh View Post

      I have a question regarding my articles for my silo.

      I have a low comp keyword that I aim to rank for and will set this as a silo lanmding page, the problem I have is creating articles in the silo for related keywords as I can only find 2 other long tails to write content about.

      Other keywords found in the "searches related to:" section and google keyword tool become off topic.

      The keyword I wish to rank for is locally targeted, for example - Tool Hire Devon (not related to my real keyword)

      How do I generate content ideas to make sure my silo structure remains tight. I am struggling to create 10 supporting articles arround the KW

      Thanks
      Im in no way an expert in the field since im reading up at the moment myself on the slo structures.

      But i dont think that they supporting pages have to be a long tail of your main keyword ie. The topic of your mainsilo.

      Now i guess it can be a little harder for local business but what i mean is that if your silo was about "Cat grooming" all your sites have to include "cat grooming" it could be a LSI word or whatever like, "how to brush a cat"

      If im completly wrong here noone would be more happy then me if i get corrected.
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      • Profile picture of the author nealh
        Originally Posted by Wieli View Post

        Im in no way an expert in the field since im reading up at the moment myself on the slo structures.

        But i dont think that they supporting pages have to be a long tail of your main keyword ie. The topic of your mainsilo.

        Now i guess it can be a little harder for local business but what i mean is that if your silo was about "Cat grooming" all your sites have to include "cat grooming" it could be a LSI word or whatever like, "how to brush a cat"

        If im completly wrong here noone would be more happy then me if i get corrected.
        Thanks for the reply,

        If you are correct it makes things a little easier however i did think the idea was to create content with long tails of the main kw which would in turn create the support required, plus rank for those as well creating string traffic.

        Maybe someone in the know can clarify this?

        If what you say is correct then I can just create article with the words from the main kw in them making them relevant.
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        • Profile picture of the author yukon
          Banned
          Originally Posted by nealh View Post

          Thanks for the reply,

          If you are correct it makes things a little easier however i did think the idea was to create content with long tails of the main kw which would in turn create the support required, plus rank for those as well creating string traffic.

          Maybe someone in the know can clarify this?

          If what you say is correct then I can just create article with the words from the main kw in them making them relevant.
          Really that's what it's all about, leaving a trail of relevant pages/links, for Google/traffic to follow.

          A typical blog will have pages/links running off in all sorts of directions & not very focused. If you go to Amazon & look at the TV category, you won't find any lawnmowers in the left sidebar, you'll find things related to TVs.

          Silos are all about relevancy & staying focused.
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  • Profile picture of the author acw
    good thread....thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author Niklas N
    Here is a great video where they show you exactly how to make the optimal silo. I'm not affiliated with this link btw, I'm just a big fan of this guy cause he gives so much value for free.

    Niklas
    Signature
    Do you have a Local Dentist Cilent?
    PR4 Dentist-Website Homepage Links Avalible

    PM me for URL and futher discussion.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Niklas N View Post

      Here is a great video where they show you exactly how to make the optimal silo. I'm not affiliated with this link btw, I'm just a big fan of this guy cause he gives so much value for free.

      Niklas
      That guy is just full of useless spam ideas, all he's doing is teaching newbies how to build temporary crap. He even admits what he does is crap.
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  • Profile picture of the author webdeep
    Hi yukon,

    Did you manage to build your own silo theme ?? I'm looking for good silo theme, any ideas ??

    Kris.
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  • Profile picture of the author dreamtoreality
    List parent categories on homepage. Parent category ----> Sub-category with a few hundred words and list of posts belonging to the sub-category ----> Post (Links to all other posts in the silo at the bottom of the page).

    Also link to Post B in Post A, link to post C in post B etc. once in the body of the text, although I'm not even sure if this is necessary. Is it?

    Assuming this is the correct way of doing things, it would kind of mess things up on my websites. This is because...

    The category page tends to target a generic keyword, like TV Reviews, and then on that page is a list of all the TVs arranged by average rating. This works quite well from a conversion rate point of view. But if my main category pages were to list all of the sub-categories instead then this would kind of mess that all up. It's also good to be able to link to category pages, in order to spread link juice around to all of the posts I want to rank.

    Also, would it be wrong for the homepage to list categories as well as their sub-categories?

    So it would be

    TV Reviews (Parent category)
    Brand 1 (Sub-category)
    Brand 2
    Brand 3
    Etc.
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    • Profile picture of the author domainarama
      I can't follow your thoughts. For me, the simple way to do silo is to buy the Clickbump theme (not an affiliate)
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by domainarama View Post

        I can't follow your thoughts. For me, the simple way to do silo is to buy the Clickbump theme (not an affiliate)
        Last I checked that had nothing to do with a silo, he was only using it to drive traffic/sales. The theme structure was a regular WP theme.
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    • Profile picture of the author domainarama
      @Yukon, No, the theme has a built-in way of making silos. It takes a bit of work. But it creates silos. Earlier this years when Google was still scoring PR I used the theme to build a site with silos. The site was two or three months old when Google last scored PR. Even though the site was in its infancy it got scored PR2. I believe it was because of the silos. There are other ways of building silos ([http://]graywolfseo[.]com/seo/how-to-silo-your-website-content/ free website, not affiliate). I have named my method.
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    • Profile picture of the author dreamtoreality
      Anyone want to answer the question at hand, or at least the first part?

      List parent categories on homepage. Parent category ----> Sub-category with a few hundred words and list of posts belonging to the sub-category ----> Post (Links to all other posts in the silo at the bottom of the page).

      Also link to Post B in Post A, link to post C in post B etc. once in the body of the text, although I'm not even sure if this is necessary. Is it?
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    • Profile picture of the author bluefirepro
      As far as I know SILO is an internal linking structure, where you create one parent page or Landing page and then connect it to its child pages via contextual linking structure.

      Eg. I got a laptop Selling landing page, then I make other pages like
      Page 1[ Best Ram in Market], {child page linking to Parent page}
      Page 2 [best monitors in market], {child page 2 linking to parent page}
      Page 3[ Windows 8 laptops], {child page 3 to parent page}

      This structure will provide authority and importance to the Parent page.


      Why SILO structure got importance from Google?
      - Earlier when Google started giving importance to inbound links, people started abusing it by various blackhat and other methods and redirecting them to low PR site with duplicate, spun or no content site.
      - Thus to support the falling result standard it gave Importance to SILO which ensures that the website has its own original supported content and connected to another important page, thus giving ranking boost.

      But still keywords, niche and other factors are considered. You cannot win a war, just by wearing SILO Helmet.
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