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Thanks Cyrus. I guess I really should not have written any thing but the word SILO!

The entire first part of my discussion item was for background and example. I simply stated that I was "unsure if Google treated them the same". My question is discussed in the third paragraph and located in the fourth paragraph (if readers would pay close attention -- tip, a question mark at the end of sentence means it is a question) and is whether or not  anyone has real, tested, experience that would indicate that it makes sense to Silo for the two terms by creating two separate silos.

That said, I have gotten the opinion from Danny Sullivan directly that he believes (and I'm paraphrasing) that Google has long treated the two as synonyms and that there should be no need to silo.

And (to your points Cyrus), I agree as long as the pages have unique content there should be no "penalty", which I always do anyway. That is simple SEO 101, but I include it for future generations reading this thread

Do tell what is clear then...

I see a mix of results, and without all the other variables that go into the rankings, they look just like the results I used to get when I optimized the two terms as separate terms. Sometimes Google showed my attorney keyphrase searches as the home page that was optimized for lawyer. Sometimes they showed it for lawyer.

Our primary key phrase for the site is "Philadelphia dog bite lawyer"... has only tangential relationship to the reference of "Philadelphia lawyer" historic meaning. Again, please focus on the actual question please.

I'm not referring to Local. I am asking about siloing a website.

It is not what I was asking.

With Hummingbird update, my client's personal injury lawyer site went from very good positions for top terms in Google to oblivion. The site had primary landing pages for parallel terms such as "dog bite lawyer" and "dog bite attorney", among other.

He does work in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, so we focus on key phrases for both "Philadelphia dog bite lawyer" and "Pennsylvania dog bite lawyer" etc.

I've decided to investigate siloing more deeply, but am unsure whether Google now considers attorney searches to be the same as lawyer searches, which would mean we would silo for "Pennsylvania" and "Philadelphia" not "Attorney" and "Lawyer".

Any real world experience in this anyone? Thanks

I have no doubt about what you are saying, but that doesn't explain the bouncing up and down effect when I am employing the same methodology that I always have, with the same intensity, etc.

Obviously it's combination of everything in the universe happening simultaneously, but the change is the curiosity.

If others are "out SEOing" me, and hitting on the latest tweaks by Google to rise above, I would see a trending downward, right?

I guess another way to look at what we are seeing would be that perhaps Google has set the results to show the newest updated sites first. For example, if it has 10 sites it considers worthy of a first page rank for a term, it might be pushing the one with the latest post update ahead of "equal" sites that haven't made a post that week.

Just theorizing... Jon

This is the type of movement I'm seeing as well. Went to #2 for a top term one week, then the next week dropped 19 places. The following week was back to #3.

I think it would be fine if Google is rotating the results, as long as they are relevant results... keeps the companies with less to spend on SEO on more equal ground with the deeper pocket companies.

I have a theory that Google may be trying to be fair to white-hat-seo sites that are doing the right things with blogging, linking, social media, etc. [ie that deserve equal good positioning] are being cycled to and from the first page, perhaps in a weekly or monthly basis. My theory would be that they are purposefully doing it to give those sites more equal exposure.

My case:

I've had top rankings for http://thedogbitelawyer.com for almost all of the important terms for dog bite lawyers for a couple of years now.

When Penguin came out we lost some ground across the board, and identified that perhaps there was too much duplicate content left over from when I inherited the site. I reworked the site wording and link structure a bit and gained back positioning.

Since that time we are up and down like a yo-yo on the top terms!

Anybody else have this suspicion? If it's true, I don't need to stress, if we are bouncing around for other reason's I'd better keep stressing!

I agree... and it made it a tough decision to use my main site for seo promotion (ie taking valuable title and tag space from less competitive terms). Luckily, I'm a one man shop with no aspirations to go global!

Therefore I can use a little more long-tail, and local terms because I don't need 20 new customers every month. Those terms do use more title and url space though...

I need advice on retooling my website for my SEO biz. I have shifted my business model from graphic designer who does websites, to "internet marketing consultant who does graphics too". My main website and domain name is over 10 years old, so I've made the decision to keep it, even though it has no keywords in the name.  The name works well for the new business, otherwise.

The site has a PR3 and I rank well for small business advertising terms, which gets me graphic design business. I intend to keep doing graphic design, but that is a smaller part of my income.

I had considered making 3 satellite sites with keyword domain names to cover my offerings of graphic design SEO, website development, and internet marketing. But am leaning against it for several reasons (that all of us SEO's know) but mainly the fact that I cannot keep up with both working for my clients and blogging on multiple sites and link building for multiple sites.

So my question is (you knew there was one coming, right?), what is the best approach to building categories of web development, internet marketing, and SEO into my existing graphic design/advertising oriented website?

This is slightly embarrassing to ask as an SEO, but given the multiple approaches possible, and knowing the importance of doing it right the first time, it's best to get an consensus perspective on the BEST approach.

My main concerns are the navigation system and the links from the homepage into the site. I have too many pages I've identified as essential to link off of the home page and navigation menus? (Website development, social media marketing, link building, keyword research, pay per click, online advertising, graphic design, brochures, catalogs, Logos, Branding, SEO, keyword research etc.)

I've always tried for the ratio of one link off of any page for every 100 words of content. Do I create a home page that is of monster proportions?

Do I just have the 4 basic areas linking off the home page then create a "landing zone" of 4 folders and create down from that? I am concerned about URL length as I go deeper with that approach.

Or, does it make more sense to have a dozen second-level pages, and not link them all off the home page, and build from beneath (and relying on external juice).

Next issue is the nav system. It will be huge. Am I best off just keeping it to 4-6, and creating subnavigation on everypage within the site according to section (PITA)? I've read dozens of blog opinions on how much nav systems do or do not hurt link juice.

I've always thought footer links were right next to worthless to pass any juice, but given this situation, does it make sense to make a footer link for each major page (about 20)?

Thanks for your opinions.