Anyone have anything else they'd like to toss into the discussion?

Any examples you'd like to share of detail page linking vs. silos?

[edit] Just found this (old) blog post by Google about the importance of (internal) link architecture... I quote:

Q: Let's say my website is about my favorite hobbies: biking and camping. Should I keep my internal linking architecture "themed" and not cross-link between the two?

A: We haven't found a case where a webmaster would benefit by intentionally "theming" their link architecture for search engines. And, keep-in-mind, if a visitor to one part of your site can't easily reach other parts of your site, that may be a problem for search engines as well.

I would remove it from your sitemap... and be sure to 301 redirect one of them to the other.

(I'd redirect /index.php to http://www.mydomain.ca)

Does this help Martin?

Yeah, your right. I would image those links aren't relevant when on store pages, and would definitely distract some people

On their product pages though, they use some cross linking to relevant topics. But I'm sure it's at the bottom- out of site- as to not distract people. So I would image those are mostly there for SEO. Would you agree?

I think you're right Alan, that makes great sense. Thanks. Do you think Etsy's sidebar is a good compromise between the two? I'm sure testing each site is the best way to figure out what users prefer on that specific site. But in general, do you think that's a good balance to use in order to keep too many links off the page, yet still keep detail pages within a category linking to each other?

Sorry for the confusion Alan, and thank you very much for the discussion.

To help clarify for others reading this discussion (and for myself), are we both agreeing that: in the attached image it is an 'SEO AND usability best practice' for the hotel detail pages inside the Tallahassee category/directory to link to each other?

*Of course, there are always caveats,  such the maximum outbound link limit recommended by Google, etc.

But as a general practice, would you have "Hotel 1", "Hotel 2" and "Hotel 3" (inside the "Tallahassee" category) link to one another?

D1i8j.jpg

Indeed Alan, that's good advice we all should follow. Thanks. I'll follow suit from here-on

Also agreed. However, when new SEOs enter the sphere, they must start somewhere. And, clearly there's value in studying other's work to help clarify, expand or even challenge one's own hypothesis and practices. I also avoid implementing a tactic/ strategy on a paid client project, if reputable SEO's and/or the community as a whole, recommend against it. I may try it on my personal site, but not a customer's. Thanks for all your help Alan.

Respectfully, what's the difference between the nearby hotels example and the cars example?
More specifically, If these 'nearby hotels' links might dilute that articles topical focus, why wouldn't a link to 'mercedes' from a 'BMW' page?
Thanks Alan.

I actually don't, because I've always thought it was a bad idea. But it seems other folks don't think it's so bad under the right circumstances.

I'd be interested in seeing a good example of an effective silo as well....
anyone?

Thanks Dave. This is exactly why I posed this discussion.... it seems as if a lot of us are getting something different from these architecture type posts.

I think it has to do with making same-level detail pages link to each other. Especially if you link to them using the anchor text they're trying to rank for.

For example, what I get out of an article like Richard Baxter's post on SEO Architecture, is that detail pages should link to each other, and that Silos should not be used. And the more architecture posts I read on SEOmoz, SEOgadget and Distilled... the more I think it's a 'best practice'.

That said, it seems from these comments that some folks read those articles differently. I think this is a serious discrepancy that we SEOs should address

Agreed, absolutely agreed! Thank you very much Alan!

PS. Could you share the slides from your presentation at SMX Advanced please? If not, how about a link to a post of yours?

Take for example, a resort detail page on oyster.com. They have a section called "nearby hotels to consider", which I believe serves two purposes...
#1) it's likely helpful to users, as most people don't restrict themselves to staying at just one specific resort, and
#2) it helps search engines flow PageRank, crawl and index other pages in the 'Aruba' category.

What I can't figure out is, what benefit would it have to not include these links to nearby hotels? (Except perhaps, on checkout process pages of course.)

What if the 'Raddison' Resort for example, got a ton of inbound links and the 'Westin Resort' had only a few? Well, you could cross link them and help the Westin Resort page rank... and simultaneously show your users more relevant options.

Yeah, I agree Alan. I don't usually think it's a good return on invested time to practice PageRank sculpting either. One could for example, being building links or generating content with the time/ resources instead

I just re-read what you said, "Individual services details pages should cross-link to each other within that service section at that level though, for usability." To be sure I understand what you're saying.... if your architecture is for example
vehicles -> cars -> luxury -> bmw
vehicles -> cars -> luxury -> mercedes
vehicles -> cars -> luxury -> jaguar
then bmw, mercedes and jaguar would link to each other... correct?

Not at all, thanks Alan. I think we're in agreeance.

As long as one is not exceeding Google's approx. outbound links per page... and as long as the the navigation make sense to the users.... specific detail pages within the same category should be linked to each other. Is that what you're saying as well?

Here's one example of why I think this is best for indexation reasons. I've attached an image of the page where I circled some stuff

What do you think Alan?

nHQf2.jpg

Thank you dignan99. What's your opinion of silos? Do you like to cross link detail pages within a category to each other, or even category pages to each other?

I definitely agree EGOL. We like to meticulously plan out sites and SEO/PPC campaigns prior to launch, but over time a site's architecture definitely needs to be revisited. Usually at that time, we try to also implement any more advanced programming knowledge we might have accumulated to help ease the pain as well

Thanks EGOL!

Thank you Dave.

I guess it comes down to flowing PageRank within a category vs. restricting PageRank to the pages that have more links. Any idea why would someone prefer the latter?

Thanks Alan. You mentioned, "where all the pages in that section have a link to all the other pages in that section".........

Can you think of any reason why you would not want detail pages within a category to link to one another?

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?