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 Architecture and Mobile First
This goes to the age-old SEO argument - how many links in the navigation. We are a well-known brick and mortar brand We have 20,000 SKUs and over 500 categories and sub-catetgories. 95%+ of our backlinks go to the home page. We don't have a blog, but it's in the works. Our site is not responsive. It serves up different versions based on device type, but is not an "M Dot". Our rankings are pretty strong in spite of a large number of technical SEO issues (different discussion). Currently, our e-commerce desktop site is "Siloed" (I'm new to the company - I didn't do it). The home page links via the top nav to categories. The category pages link to subcategories via sidebar navigation, or via images on the category pages (instead of product images). It's pretty close to textbook silos, and it's very near how I would have designed it. This silo architecture passes the most link juice to our categories which target our highest search volume (head) terms. The categories pass link juice (albeit significantly less) to our subcats which target secondary terms. In terms of search volume and commercial value, our tiers line up very neatly. On average, the targeted subcat terms get about 1/6 of the volume of our head terms. The Silo concept has been around forever, and is evangelized by Bruce Clay and other respected SEOs. Every time I've siloed an ecommerce site, the rankings improve dramatically, so who am I to argue? So, what's the problem? Read on... Our mobile navigation, on the other hand, links to every category and subcategory via flyout navigation (I didn't do this, either). In theory, this distributes an equal amount of link juice to all categories and subcategories. It robs link juice from our categories and passes it to subcategories. Right now, this isn't a problem. Rankings are based on the desktop site, and minor adjustments are made for mobile rankings. When Mobile First rolls out, our mobile nav will be the default navigation for Google, and in theory, link juice distribution across the site will change radically, and potentially harm our rankings for our head terms. I always study site architecture for a number of respected ecommerce sites. Target and Walmart, for example, link to every category and subcategory through their mobile and desktop navigation. Wayfair takes a silo approach on mobile and desktop, linking in tiers. I would argue that Walmart and Target have so much DA/TF/CF that they don't give a damn about targeted link juice distribution - it's all about UX. Wayfair's backlink profile is strong, but it's not Walmart or Target, so they need to be concerned about link juice distribution - hence the silo approach. Have the Google spokespeople said anything about this? I see this as a potential landmine across the industry. Is this something I should be concerned about? Has anyone had any experience with de-siloing a website? Am I making a big deal out of a non-issue? Please - no arguments about usability. UX is absolutely part of the equation. Usability is a ranking factor, but if our rankings and traffic take a nose dive, UX isn't going to matter. This is a theoretical discussion discussion on link juice distribution, and I know that compromises need to be made between SEO and UX.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Satans_Apprentice0 -
Are my language tags correct?
Hello, I have a Spanish website for Spanish speaking people es.example.com. I also have example.com for all English speaking people across the world. I want that users who go to google.es and search in English get our example.com site and others who search in Spanish on google.es get the Spanish site. Should the tags be like this: Or should we also have this tag aswell to specify? Otherwise we might only show the es.domain even for english queris? :
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | advertisingtech0 -
Help me to understand why this page doesn't rank
Hello everyone. I am trying to understand why most of my website category pages don't show up in the in the first 50 organic results on Google, despite my high website DA and high PA of those pages. We used to rank high a few years ago, not clear why most of those pages have almost completely disappeared. So, just to take one as an example, please, help me to understand why this page doesn't shows up in the first 50 organic search results for the keyword "cello sheet music": http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Cello.html I really can't explain why, unless we are under some sort of "penalization" or similar (a curse?!)... I have analyzed any possible metric, and can't find a logical explanation. Looking forward for your thoughts guys! All the best, Fab.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
Part of my site does not show the correct Meta title
Hi our website meta title on the directory section is showing the same title, it does not show the page title. We have tried turning off all plugins, reinstalling the theme, creating a new htacces file. installing Yoast, and testing with All in one seo but still the same thing happens. Tried different themes with the same results But when we test with Twenty Thirteen it is ok Completely lost and would love some help Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Taiger0 -
Correct Internal Linking Flow / Keyword Cannibalization
Hi, Would like some advice re our internal linking structure and possible keyword self cannibalization on our ecommerce site.. Will try and give you an overview. Imagine this page structure: Site
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs2010
Brand 1
Brand 2
Brand 2 Shoes
Products
Brand 2 Sweaters Then say in Brand 2 Shoes page we have the shoes, e.g., the products labeled as Brand 2 Shoes "Name of Model"
Brand 2 Shoes "Name of Model" Now, what I'm worried about is that if I do a search for "Brand 2 Shoes" it should bring up my landing page right? But it doesn't, it brings up some of the products instead... I'm worried that we may be self cannibalizing some of the keywords - and thinking of changing the product page to be "Brand Name of Model Shoes" or "Name of Model Shoes by Brand" Any ideas or comments appreciated! Thanks all0 -
How important is the optional <priority>tag in an XML sitemap of your website? Can this help search engines understand the hierarchy of a website?</priority>
Can the <priority>tag be used to tell search engines the hierarchy of a site or should it be used to let search engines know which priority to we want pages to be indexed in?</priority>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mycity4kids0 -
Silo This! Siloing issue with KW targets and multiple categories
I am having a difficult time determining how to silo the content for this website (douwnpour). The issue I am having is that as I see it there are several different top-level keyword targets to put at the top of the silos, however due to the nature of the products they fit in almost every one of the top-level categories. For instance our main keyword term is "Audio Books" (and derivatives thereof). but we also want to target "Audiobook Downloads" and "Books on CD". Due to the nature of the products, almost every product would fit in all 3 categories. It gets even worse when you consider normal book taxonomy. The normal breakdown would be from audiobooks>Fiction(or Nonfiction). Now each product also belongs to one of these categories, as well as "download", "CD", and "Audiobook". And still worse, our navigation menus link every page on the site back to all of these categories (except audiobooks, as we don't really have a landing page for that besides the home page, which is lacking in optimized content, but is linked from every page on the site.) So, I am finding siloing, or developing a cross-linking plan that makes sense very difficult. It's much easier at the lower levels, but at the top things become muddy. Throw in the idea that we may eventually get e-books as well, and it gets even muddier. I have some ideas of how to deal with some of this, such as having the site navigation put in an i frame, instituting basic breadcrumbs, and building landing pages, but I'm open to any advice or ideas that might help, especially with the top level taxonomy structure. TIA!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DownPour0 -
In order to improve SEO with silos'urls, should i move my posts from blog directory to pages'directories ?
Now, my website is like this: myurl.com/blog/category1/mypost.html myurl.com/category1/mypage.html So I use silos urls. I'd like to improve my ranking a little bit more. Is it better to change my urls like this: myurl.com/category1/blog/mypost.html or maybe myurl.com/category1/mypost.html myurl.com/category1/mypage.html Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Max840