Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Silo vs breadcrumbs in 2015

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Silo vs breadcrumbs in 2015

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    6
    2987
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • juun
      juun last edited by

      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?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • juun
        juun last edited by

        great thanks ill give that a go

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • AMHC
          AMHC last edited by

          It's been a while since I've used WP, but if you use posts (or posts and pages), you will have a major silo and duplicate content problem with blog category pages.

          The way to solve this is to go to the section where you set up your post categories, and set the slug to be identical to your category page. For example, if you have a page category with the slug "blue-widgets", set the post category slug to "blue widgets". This makes the category page the parent for posts in that category.

          There are also some adjustments that you will need to make to your URLs removing "/category/ from your URLs. I've done it, and it's pretty easy. Maybe another poster could give you the specifics.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • juun
            juun last edited by

            great thanks very informative reply, i've started using wordpress for most of my sites now, is siloing easy enough to do in wordpress?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • AMHC
              AMHC last edited by

              Silos will always work. It's not some trick - it's how Google works. Here's a very simplified explanation as to why...

              Let's say that I have an eCommerce site, and I sell lawnmowers and Plywood. Let's also say that the Lawnmowers category page has a theoretical 100 points of link juice. Lets also say that the site sells 2 lawnmowers - the Fubar 2000 and the Toecutter 300. If the lawnmower category page only links to the Fubar 2000 and the Toecutter 300 pages, the category page will push 45 points of link juice to each page (pages can pass on +/-90% of their link juice, and 90/2=45).

              Both pages will receive almost the full 45 point benefit because the pages are relevant to the category page.

              If the Lawnmower category page instead only has 1 link to the Plywood page, the Lawnmower category page would push 90 points of link juice to the plywood page. But, the Plywood page would not receive the full benefit of the 90 points, because Lawnmowers and Plywood don't share much relevance. In this case, Google would heavily discount the 90 points, so that the Plywood page might only get the benefit of 30 points. Think of it as a leaky hose.

              What happens to the other 60 Points of Link Juice? It gets dumped on the floor, and the site loses the ranking power of those 60 points.

              Keep in mind that this is all theoretical, and that link juice comes in different flavors like apple, orange and prune, representing the different ranking factors (Trust, Authority, Topical Authority, Social Signals, etc.) . Orange might discount 90% while prune might only discount 10%. In this case, is there really a 67% link juice hit? Damned if I know, but I had to pick a number... This is all theoretical. I do know that link juice loss between pages that aren't relevant is dramatic. I also know that it is very possible to determine how your internal pages rank based on your internal link structure, and link placement on the page.

              By siloing a website, I have seen rankings jump dramatically. Most websites hemorrhage link juice. Think of it as Link Juice Reclamation. The tighter you can build your silos, the less link juice gets dumped on the floor. By reclaiming the spilled link juice and putting it in the right places, you can dramatically increase your rankings. BTW, inbound links work in a similar fashion. If the Lawnmower page was an external site and linked to the Plywood page, the same discounts would apply. That's why it pays to get niche relevant backlinks for maximum benefit.

              This in no way accounts for usability, and linking between silos can make sense to benefit end-users. Again, this model is probably overly simplified, and doesn't take into account Block Level Analysis, but the logic is sound. You can build spreadsheet models for link juice distribution factoring in Block level, discounts, etc. It's by no means accurate, but can give you a pretty good idea of where your link juice is going. You can model this on the old (and increasingly irrelevant) PageRank Algorithm. Pagerank is Logarithmic and it takes 8-9x as much link juice to move up in PR. If it takes 100 points of Link Juice to become a PR1, it takes 800-900 points to become a PR 2. Generally speaking a PR2 page, via links, can create roughly 7 to 75 PR1 pages, depending on how close the PR2 is to becoming a PR3.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • OlegKorneitchouk
                OlegKorneitchouk last edited by

                Both is the way to go. Silos are essentially structuring your pages so that per topic, there is 1 master article and multiple supporting articles that link back to the master article. The topic only links to pages relevant to the topic and not other sections of the site.

                You can use breadcrumbs in conjunction with a silo as the structure is suitable for them.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • Caffeine_Marketing

                  .com vs .co.uk

                  Hi, we are a UK based company and we have a lot of links from .com websites. Does the fact that they are .com or .co.uk affect the quality of the links for a UK website?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caffeine_Marketing
                  0
                • 94501

                  Null Alt Image Tags vs Missing Alt Image Tags

                  Hi, Would it be better for organic search to have a null alt image tag programatically added to thousands of images without alt image tags or just leave them as is. The option of adding tailored alt image tags to thousands of images is not possible. Is having sitewide alt image tags really important to organic search overall or what? Right now, probably 10% of the sites images have alt img tags. A huge number of those images are pages that aren Thanks!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 94501
                  0
                • KJ-Rodgers

                  Location Pages On Website vs Landing pages

                  We have been having a terrible time in the local search results for 20 + locations. I have Places set up and all, but we decided to create location pages on our sites for each location - brief description and content optimized for our main service. The path would be something like .com/location/example. One option that has came up in question is to create landing pages / "mini websites" that would probably be location-example.url.com. I believe that the latter option, mini sites for each location, would be a bad idea as those kinds of tactics were once spammy in the past. What are are your thoughts and and resources so I can convince my team on the best practice.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KJ-Rodgers
                  0
                • Ask4443523

                  H2 vs. H3 Tags for Category Navigation

                  Hey, all. I have client that uses tags in the navigation for its blog.  For example, tags might appear around "Library," "Recent Posts," etc.  This is handled through their WordPress theme. This seems fairly standard, but I wonder whether tags are semantically appropriate.  Since each blog post is fairly lengthy (about 500-1000 words) with multiple tags, would it be more appropriate to use tags for this menu navigation?  Are we cutting into the effectiveness of our tags by using them for menu navigation? The navigation is certainly an important page element, and it structures content, so it seems that it should use some header tag.  Anyways, your thoughts are greatly appreciated.  I'm a content creator, not an SEO, so this is a bit out of my skillset.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ask4443523
                  0
                • birchlore

                  Shopify Product Variants vs Separate Product Pages

                  Let's say I have 10 different models of hats, and each hat has 5 colors. I have two routes I could take: a) Make 50 separate product pages Pros: -Better usability for customer because they can shop for just masks of a specific color. We can sort our collections to only show our red hats. -Help SEO with specific kw title pages (red boston bruins hat vs boston bruins hat). Cons: -Duplicate Content: Hat model in one color will have almost identical description as the same hat in a different color (from a usability and consistency standpoint, we'd want to leave descriptions the same for identical products, switching out only the color) b) Have 10 products listed, each with 5 color variants Pros: -More elegant and organized -NO duplicate Content Cons: -Losing out on color specific search terms -Customer might look at our 'red hats' collection, but shopify will only show the 'default' image of the hat, which could be another color. That's not ideal for usability/conversions. Not sure which route to take. I'm sure other vendors must have faced this issue before. What are your thoughts?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | birchlore
                  0
                • mj775

                  Canonical VS Rel=Next & Rel=Prev for Paginated Pages

                  I run an ecommerce site that paginates product pages within Categories/Sub-Categories. Currently, products are not displayed in multiple categories but this will most likely happen as time goes on (in Clearance and Manufacturer Categories). I am unclear as to the proper implementation of Canonical tags and Rel=Next & Rel=Prev tags on paginated pages. I do not have a View All page to use as the Canonical URL so that is not an option. I want to avoid duplicate content issues down the road when products are displayed in multiple categories of the site and have Search Engines index paginated pages. My question is, should I use the Rel=Next & Rel=Prev tags on paginated pages as well as using Page One as the Canonical URL? Also, should I implement the Canonical tag on pages that are not yet paginated (only one page)?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mj775
                  0
                • JohnW-UK

                  One Way Links vs Two Way Links

                  Hi, Was speaking to a client today and got asked how damaging two way links are. i.e. domaina.com links to domainb.com and domainb.com links back to domaina.com. I need a nice simple layman's explanation of if/how damaging they are compared to one way links. And please don't answer with you lose link juice as I have a job explaining link juice.... I am explaining things to a non techie! Thank you!!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK
                  0
                • Caleone

                  800 Number vs. Local Phone

                  I have a client with multiple locations throughout the US. They are currently using different 800 numbers on their site for their different locations. As they try to optimize their local presence but submitting to local directories, we are trying to determine two things: Does having a local number reroute to an 800 number devalue the significance of it being a local number (I've never heard of this, but someone told them it did) Locality and consistency are important. Assuming they can't remove the 800 numbers from the site, are they better off keeping the 800 numbers on their site and using local numbers every else online OR just using the 800 numbers for all of their local listings?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caleone
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter

                Access all your tools in one place. Whether you're tracking progress or analyzing data, everything you need is at your fingertips.

                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.