Do I understand Silos correctly?
-
Hi everyone,
Rob Cairns brought me onto the concept of silos.
I'm very amazed of the concept and want to make sure that I get it right.
When I create silos I sort subjects according to their main keyword which will rank most difficult and make this the main landing page (the main menu entry within a menu navigation).
Then I create submenuentries that have the main menu entry as parent and that also have (in wordpress) the landing page (which is the main menu entry) as a parent site.
I use these subpages for LSI and long tail KWs.
I do not link between silo subpages of different categories. There is (naturally) a link from the main menu entry to the sub menu entries (which is a little weaker) and a link back to the main menu entry (the landing page) from within the text (which is a little stronger).
I also can link between subpages of the same silo or from subpages to a landing page of a different silo if the keyword fits to that landing page.
Is that correct so far?
Cheers
Marc
-
Hi Martijn,
thank you very much. Now I am absolutely confident to build my own silo
As far as I understood it is only ok to link to the main landing page of other silos ... not to the silo subpages. And you should not overdo it... for whatever that means...
Thank you very much.
-
Hi Marc,
You're definitely getting the idea of silos. I'm not sure though if you should or should not be linking to other silos. In some cases it can be benefitial as the silos could be relevant to each other as well. This used to be the case for a site I used to work on and still in some cases I can see a lot of potential in interlinking certain channels together.
Martijn.
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
-
Silo vs breadcrumbs in 2015
Hi ive heard silos being mentioned in the past to help with rankings does this still apply? and what about breadcrumbs do i use them with the silo technique or instead of which ones do you think are better or should i not be using these anymore with the recent google updates?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | juun0 -
Silo Architecture - need an expert's advice
I understand the concept of silo architecture. What I don't understand is how to build the site navigation. I see experts talking about silos, but their sites have pervasive top level navigation. In theory, your top level nav breaks your silos. If I have 20 pages of supporting content all linked to my silo page, and the top nav is on the supporting content pages, then those pages all link to the pages in the top nav - silo broken, and link juice diluted. it would seem to me that the only way to build a true silo is to strip out all of the navigation on a supporting page, and only have it link to: 1. The silo landing page 2. Other supporting pages in the silo. is this what Bruce Clay does? I've seen Rand's lectures on silos as well. Is this what he is doing? I recently saw a video by the Network Empire team, and they'd also have a pervasive nav. Can someone please explain this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CsmBill0 -
Understanding the levels in my site
How can I figure out which pages are on the same level on my site ? I created an automatic sitemap with a software online but it doesn't tell me abc page is on the 1 st level, xyz page is on the second level etc... and I have a hard time figuring out if my main menu is on the same level as my drop down menu as it is visible on the same page. Is there anyway to figure what which pages are on the same level ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Anybody else seeing Penguin corrections?
Hi,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayvensoft
Over the past few days, I have noticed that a few of my pages that were hit by the Google Penguin update come back from the dead and return to the #1 spot for the main keywords. I still don't see any change for secondary keywords I used to rank for, but hey at least there is something. Has anybody else noticed this? NOTE: I did not make any changes to my pages. I had never done any black-hat (just greyish) so I took the advice of many and just waited.1 -
Website Siloing..best practice?
Hi all I am doing some research this week on the effects of siloing a Magento site. We have about 1,654 pages with approx 1,400 products. We want to silo the website in order to address the internal linking issues and to also focus the customer journey in a more organised way. I need to report all of the possible angles and effects that this will have on the site, prior to implementing it. Does anyone have info on best practice for siloing? I'd appreciate any help... Thanks Nick
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Total_Displays0 -
Website gone from SERPs - please help to understand why
Dear SeoMozers, My website www.buy-hosting.net ist around for about 6 months. It performed quiet well the first months and for the main keyword "Buy Hosting" it went continously better, until #7 in SERPS of Google. Then, some days ago, it suddenly disappeared and traffic went down to nearly zero. It is not even in the Top 100 for "buy hosting" anymore. Can anyone please advice me, what could be the reason for that and what I could do about it? I'am desperate, beacuse I worked about 8 months nearly 100% of my time on that project... Thank you and kind regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ie4mac0 -
Correcting an unnatural link profile
A site I work with ranked page 1 for a competitive keyphrase until recently. (Not Panda-related as far as we can tell.) We've done extensive on-site tweaking and the page is still parked at 27-32 in the SERPs. We believe the only viable explanation at this point is an unnatural link profile. Over the course of several years the site has racked up a large collection of footer links with anchor text due to business relationships with the sites in question. So the profile is now skewed, with the result as follows: 100,000 domain links (top 10 competitors range 1800-50k) 87% anchor text optimized (competitors 0-41%) 99% follow links (competitors 85-100%) The vast majority of links are footer links We're working on creating more natural, high-value links but this of course takes time. In the short term, two questions: Should we aim to remove or change some of the footer links? If so, do we remove them, or just change anchor text? How many? How many new links should we pursue each month to make a meaningful impact on the profile without being too aggressive? Any other thoughts on how to fix this are also appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kdcomms0 -
Site Architecture: Cross Linking vs. Siloing
I'm curious to know what other mozzers think about silo's... Can we first all agree that a flat site architecture is the best practice? Relevant pages should be grouped together. Shorter, broader and (usually) therefore higher volume keywords should be towards the top of each category. Navigation should flow from general to specific. Agreed? As Google say's on page 10 of their SEO Starter Guide, "you should think about how visitors will go from a general page (your root page) to a page containing more specific content ." OK, we all agree so far, right? Great! Enter my question: Bruce Clay (among others) seem to recommend siloing as a best practice. While Richard Baxter (and many others @ SEOmoz), seem to view silos as a problem. Me? I've practiced (relevant) internal cross linking, and have intentionally avoided siloing in almost all cases. What about you? Is there a time and place to use silos? If so, when and where? If not, how do we rectify the seemingly huge differences of opinions between expert folks such as Baxter and Clay?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DonnieCooper7