What do you think of Theme pyramids for SEO?
-
Hi,
Just been reading up on theme pyramids, I have seen these before but found a good article on the subject going into quite some detail.
http://www.canonicalseo.com/theme-pyramids/
Using the word 'Pyramid' does scream black hat to me but looking at the structure, this must be the best way for internal linking.
Even the keyword structure looks good,
Example:
homepage - shoes
category - red shoes
sub category - size 7 red shoes
Building anchor text links for shoes, red shoes or size 7 red shoes will benefit all 3 terms.
Negative/Positive comments please.
-
I think this video would explain a lot
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-flat-site-architecture
-
Ok, let me get this right so I don't have to ask again
Example Layout:
http://www.seoconsult.com/seoblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Flat-Architecture1.jpg
If pages on level 3 only linked back to it's linking page on level 2 that would be pyramid.
If every page linked to every page then that is flat.
Usually in eCommerce websites you cant get to a individual product in one click from the homepage, you have to travel through cats and sub cats so most eCommerce sites must not be flat?
-
No flat means that evey page is linked from the home page and back to the home page, this is the optimal link stucture for pagerank. But as mentioned , you need to think of your users.
If you make every page link to every other page, then you keep thinks pretty equal, when really you want certain pages to have more pagerank then others.
Make sure you important pages are linked from your homepage if posible, then from there, i would think of what needed for your users.
Every ones content is different, and there is no hard and fast rule that fits every site.
-
Yes, every site potentially has a logical hierarchy to it (more than one, in most cases) that could make sense for both visitors and SEO. It's really the basis of all information architecture, in a sense.
In SEO, we usually refer to a "flat" architecture as an ideal where the home-page would link to every page on the site and every page would only be one step away. Of course, in practice, this can lead to unusable sites and massive dilution of internal PR. It's great for a 10-page site, but not for a 10,000-page site.
-
Thanks for your reply,
Ok Peter, so your actually saying the 'idea' of the pyramid does make logical sense.
Every website has a hierarchy and this can be produced for bots and users by introducing some kind of pyramid linking structure?
When you say 'flat architecture' I take it you mean where every page links to every page so every page looks equal?
-
Absolutely (I actually thumbed up your comments). It's good to be aware of internal PR flow, and it IS important. it's just easy to go crazy.
-
I agree, i do not suggest anyone go out to link for the sole reason of pagerank (Admittedly I did just that when I first read the algorithm), only that is should be understood and considered when linking.
It is amazing how good a linking structure you come up with when you link naturaly. in fact i have to say that a lot of good SEO occures when doing things naturaly. I think SEO today is more of what not to do rather than what to do. It is hard to beat the SE's but you can make sure you not doing yourself harm.
-
I think this is really just an extension of site/information architecture in general - to some degree, a logical structure is good for people and bots. I also think there's no "right" answer when it comes to this kind of structure vs. a "flat" architecture. As Alan said, a flat architecture isn't usually practical on big sites, but I think it goes deeper. A flat architecture implies that all the pages on your site have equal weight. That's rarely true. Driving internal link-juice to major categories and drilling down focuses the most weight on the top.
Now, you can overdo it. I think the article you site goes a little too far these days, because if you apply that to any situation, you're going to end up with a ton of thin content. Post-Panda, created 100s of deep pages just to target 3-4 word phrases could backfire. Eventually, you're going to run out of content for those pages. So, I wouldn't create a pyramid frame and then start looking for bricks. Start with your pile of bricks and see what kind of pyramid you can make out of it. Good information architecture starts with the information you have.
I also tend to lean toward hybrid approaches. For example, you can set up a pyramid but then also link to your Top 10 Products from your home-page. That flattens your architecture for those key products and sends link-juice deep into your structure. There are a lot of useful variations on that theme.
-
no, no-follow tags use as much pagerank as any other links, it just does go anywhere, so it is wasted. You should never use no-follow on internal links, is just a waste of link juice.
No-follows produce no gain, the only use is when you link to a dodgy site, you want to tell Google, thaat you are not passing link juice to this dogy site, you do not vouch for them.
-
Thanks,
But can this not be controlled by the no follow tag?
-
If you could you would want to link to every page from your home page and link back to the home page from every page without any other linksing, but a limit on the number of pages http://thatsit.com.au/seo/reports/violation/the-page-contains-too-many-hyperlinks andthe fact that it may not be friendly to your users does not allow this, but this is the best linking stucture, have a read of this page for a clearer explaintion http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/a-simple-explanation-of-pagerank
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to find trustful seo specialist?
How to find trustful seo specialist if you don't know about SEO a lot?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DigiVital1 -
How do I deal with Negative SEO (Spammy Links)?
For the past 12 months, our website has been hit by spammy links with annoying anchor text. We suspected one of our competitor are deploying negative SEO on us. The image is an example of the sites and anchor text we have been spammed with. The frequency is about 1 - 2 spammy links a day. I have a few questions from here onwards: Does those links affect our SEO? (Most are mainly nofollow) Other than disavow, what other stuff can I do? How will google and other search engines see this incident? TcmFsti
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Changsst0 -
SEO for Career sites and sup-pages
For main job categories: We manage several career pages for several clients but the competition for the main keywords (even several long tail) is from big names like Indeed and similar job boards?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | rflores
What would you recommend? For job posts: Since the job posts that our clients post are short lived (80% live less than a month) would it still be incorrect to purchase backlinks? or is it always a big no Thanks for your help. And if a similar question has been asked I would appreciate if you could point me to it. I could not find one.0 -
Negative SEO campaign just started against my site. What do I do?
As the question says, I have just got alerts of new links, being clearly a negative seo campaign against my site. We are talking, lots of spammy, rude anchor text type keywords being used. Whilst I only have alerts of a small number (around 30), it has just happened and I know from the type of spammy links they are that more will be coming. So, question is, should I disavow? Do I keep submitting new disavows every few days as more are discovered? Any advice will be greatly be appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jonathan790 -
Is Yahoo! Directory still a beneficial SEO tactic
For obvious reasons, we have submitted our clients to high authority directories such as Yahoo! Directory and Business.com. However, with all of the algorithm updates lately, we've tried to cut back on the paid directories that we submit our clients to. Having said that, my question is, is Yahoo! Directory still a beneficial SEO tactic? Or are paid directories, with the exception of BBB.com, a bad SEO tactic?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MountainMedia0 -
I think my site is affected by a Google glitch...or something
Although google told me No manual spam actions found i had not received an unnatural link request notice i figured it would be a good idea to clean these up so i did. So i have submitted 3 reconsideration requests from google. They all came back with the same response: No manual spam actions found. I really doubt that anyone at google really checked those out.You will notice that i don't even appear on page 1-10 at all...its clearly google filtering the site out from the results(except for my brand terms), but i have no idea what for.What do you guys think it is? If you see anythign let me know so i can have it fixed.This has been going on for 2 months now...my company has been around for a long time...i dont understand why suddenly im not showing up in searches for the keyword si used to rank for...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CMTM0 -
SEO for location outside major city
Hello, I'm hoping to get some opinions on optimising a site for a client based 30 minutes outside of Dublin. Obviously there is a higher search volume for "x in Dublin" than "x in small town". What do you think the best strategies are for incorporating the "Dublin" into keywords? For example is it OK to use phrases like "x near Dublin" or "x in Greater Dublin", or do you think this is a bit misleading? The client in question sells good online, so the customer wouldn't physically have to visit the store. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | gcdtechnologies0 -
Ever seen a black hat SEO hack this sneaky?
A friend pointed out to me that a University site had been hacked and used to gain top Google rankings. But it was cloaked so that most users wouldn't notice the hack. Only Googlebot and visitors from Google SERPs for the spam keywords would see a hacked version. See http://www.rypmarketing.com/blog/122-how-hackers-gained-an-easy-1-google-ranking-using-a-university-website.whtml (my blog) for screenshot and specifics. I've dealt with hacks before, but nothing this evil and sneaky. Ever seen anything like this? This is not our client, but was just curious if others had seen a hack like this before.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AdamThompson0