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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 found where I read it. Thanks for that post, I hadn't yet read it. However, we have some misinformation going on here from the engines because on [schema's getting started page](2c. Testing your markup) @ '2c.Testing your markup', they say, "Google provides a rich snippets testing tool, which you can use to test your markup and identify any errors."

Perhaps, we're just too soon, too early of adopeters
Thanks oznappies

I realize you're looking for free ones, but if you've got a micro budget, this has some awesome templates.... http://themeforest.net/

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

What type of info do you want from the analysis? In my experience, we don't really worry about competitors in Adwords. We focus heavily on improving Quality Score though. HINT: start out with a high keyword bid so your historical CTR is on your side.

4 - 1 - 32 - 21 - 33

(40% cut would be fair?)

Hey Jonathan,

Chris is right. I strongly recommend:

1. use the alt tag (and don't hide text)

2. use descriptive names for images

3. use text links along with the images

A great example is http://www.etsy.com/category/jewelry
(except they didn't name the images very well)

Does this help?

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?

I personally try to think of CRO as a process rather than a set of standards, here's the best place to start in my opinion. This is a great quick start, and some pretty good general ideas to help get started.

Will you guys be testing once it's launched? If you want to, David Booth has a great course on for website optimizer on lynda.com.

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

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.

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

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?

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?

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.

Check out Google's Help Article about this... Specifically, read under Business Location.

Does this help?

Hey Michelleh,

Matt Cutts gives his advice about it in this video about publishing 100 pages at once....

Hey Todd, thanks.

While I definitely agree about having tightly themed categories, I'm not quite sure I am sold on using a silo. Correct me if I'm wrong here please, but isn't a silo when you don't cross link detail pages (within the same category) with each other? I think Alan feels the same way, or perhaps I've misunderstood.

Check this post about the importance of link architecture by Google. Specifically, the last Q&A.