What do you think of Theme pyramids for SEO?

[activitysuper]

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.

[AlanMosley]

I think this video would explain a lot

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-flat-site-architecture

[activitysuper]

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?

[AlanMosley]

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.

[Dr-Pete]

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.

[activitysuper]

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?

[Dr-Pete]

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.

[AlanMosley]

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.

[Dr-Pete]

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.

[AlanMosley]

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.

[activitysuper]

Thanks,

But can this not be controlled by the no follow tag?

[AlanMosley]

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