Site Architecture: Cross Linking vs. Siloing

[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?

[DonnieCooper]

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.

[AlanBleiweiss]

just to clarify regarding my input - my perspective is based on my experience with client sites on all scales, small, medium, large and mega sites.

To me it's more important to see how things work on our own sites and evolve them over time as compared to purely looking for what others do or say as it's own reason for taking action.

[DonnieCooper]

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.

[AlanBleiweiss]

If I have a category California Hotels, sub-category San Francisco Hotels, then having links in a sub-navigation bar to each (if there's only a handful), each of those links reinforces the strength of the top level Hotels, 2nd level California, and third level San Francisco related phrases.  They all support each other.

If, on the other hand, I have a link to "nearby hotels", that implies I'm going from a single hotel details page to a uniquely filtered "geo" category page that shows hotels based on some criteria - it might be all San Francisco, or all within a distance radius, or all within a zip code radius.

Even if it's all other hotels in San Francisco, it's not a link pointing to another (or several) same-level page(s).  It's pointing one layer higher.

That's a filter more than a properly constructed category drill-down.  And it implies that the page I'm on will NOT be listed on that target of the "nearby" link.

[AlanBleiweiss]

You're dead on accurate in the need for and importance of how "consensus" can help new people get started.  The trick is helping them find enough truly experienced people who have done that testing on a wide enough variety of sites, as well as lots of disclaimers being plainly stated on all such discussions.  It's why I strive to always refer to "in my experience"...

[DonnieCooper]

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

[EGOL]

This is a great question and an even better discussion.

Special thanks to Alan for sharing all of the details. 

[DonnieCooper]

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

[dignan99]

Agreed.

I spent some time working on a hybrid silo structure in my blog, and proper cross linking on the main area of the site thanks to the discussion here.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Having all listed and linked is ideal for SEO, however you rapidly cross into usability problems if there are more than a handful. (Would you want 50 or hundred links in a sidebar nav? ) When a site is so big that there are more than a handful that could be linked from that sidebar, it's actually best practice to NOT have any others linked from the sidebar, else you confuse users even more (listing only some, but not all). User Experience is paramount when making these decisions. Even at the expense of SEO in some cases. And if that happens, other tactics need to be employed. Like having a separate, dedicated funnel for "featured properties". Which requires even more unique content in that funnel. But it at least boosts the ranking value for those properties included.

[DonnieCooper]

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?