Site Architecture: Cross Linking vs. Siloing

[DonnieCooper]

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?

[DonnieCooper]

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!

[DonnieCooper]

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?

[AlanBleiweiss]

Yes - if there are X number of pages within a section, it becomes too many to reasonably link from a sub-nav.  X being a subjective value that needs to be determined case by case.

Ideally, it might lead to yet one more sub-level (such as in sub-sub categories), or in pagination (not blocked from search.  That itself is challenging to do in the right manner so as to avoid going too deep or too thin.

There's no other reason I can think of though, and no other method I'd consider a best practice.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Oh - wait I just re-read your question as to not wanting detail pages to link to one another...

If I'm at a sub-category, I would not want, nor need, every individual product/event page in that group to link to each other.  Individual services details pages should cross-link to each other within that service section at that level though, for usability.

Does that make sense? Or did I just confuse you?

[DonnieCooper]

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

[dignan99]

I spent some time using a silo plugin for a wordpress site early on, and also spent some time with a theme that had a silo format, but ended up switching over to a flat site architecture, I just did like the theme for wordpress that used silo, and the plugin seemed like junk.

I'd love to take a look at a well run silo site if you know of one.

[dignan99]

What are the perceived negative effects, if any, of doing a silo structure?

[AlanBleiweiss]

I agree with Rand's '09 article in general, however there are some things I think take it a bit too far (such as redirecting PDF documents for link juice).  If a PDF is truly the most relevant content on a topic, I believe it should be indexed.

The biggest factor is that if we get completely bogged down in this process just for SEO sake, we lose focus on user experience.

It's right up there with page and link sculpting - to me, it's a waste of time and harms user experience.  And the time spent going that far is, in my opinion, in 2011 much better spent on other SEO tactics.  Not just because Google has changed how they deal with nofollow links.

[AlanBleiweiss]

If anything, sometimes silo structure is not the best for user experience, or the drill down too deep, into ever more thinner content to the point where it's so thin as to have a negative impact on SEO and user experience.

[DonnieCooper]

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?

[DonnieCooper]

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.

[dignan99]

Ultimately,  the silo process just takes a bit of time for each new post making sure it links to another category?

I know there are plugins for wordpress that will do automatic linking based on any word you input, and it will link a set or random number of times throughout your site.

It could be worth setting up for me and just include some keyword phrases in the correct articles just to get the link process going properly.

[blackballonline]

Great find on that post. It lays it all out. As long as the silos are thin (not more than 2 layers beneath the home page) it can bring a benefit to adding extra ranking pages with minimal work comparatively. Rand talks about eliminating the bottom layer of the hierarchy to push the content up a level and make the resulting pages extremely stout. The major problem is always going to be the end of the chain. He calls them PageRank sinks.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Well it depends. Is there only one BMW or are there several? If there is only one, then yes - cross link all the luxury detail pages.  If there are several, then that's the level for cross linking detail pages, even though it's so deep.  If that's the case though, you'd better get inbound links pointing to the parent luxury category page.

And in any regard, don't just have a bunch of links on those category pages - have descriptive paragraph content focused on that category's primary topical focus.

[DonnieCooper]

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?

[AlanBleiweiss]

The "nearby hotels to consider" feature is a user thing.  It may or may not pass quality page rank.

In some cases, that extra link could dilute the topical focus / strength of the page it's on.

So if I get to resort X's page, and there's a link to "nearby hotels", there's an implied relationship.  Good for users.  But for SEO, sure it's related stuff, yet maybe not laser focus related.

Another example is blog posts that end with a following box "related articles" and that box contains three or five links to other articles.  Maybe they're highly related, maybe loosely.  If they're loosely related, sure it MIGHT be good to help users.  Yet it probably dilutes this article's topical focus.

[AlanBleiweiss]

The slides will be going up at some point in the next few days.  And I'll have a follow-up post that includes the notes for each slide.  In the mean time, I did an article on Search Marketing Wisdom yesterday directly related to the last slide in that deck.

[DonnieCooper]

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

[DonnieCooper]

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?