Silo Questions

[matora97]

Hey everyone, I got 4 questions I hope someone can help me with...
1. If I create a silo structure: - silo - category (money page) - supporting articles

- is it okay to have my -category- level be the 'money pages' or do you rank the bottom of the silo?

2. When creating a silo is it necessary (for silo to be a silo) to have a url structure in place that guides to my page -

example: https : // www (dot) coffeemaker (dot) com/coffee/foreign/brazilian


or can I just create a linking structure inside of my content that links down to my -category- level & use the supporting articles to link up to -category- level but with all of them having unique urls -


i.e. https : // www (dot) coffeemaker (dot) com/coffee
https : // www (dot) coffeemaker (dot) com/foreign
https : // www (dot) coffeemaker (dot) com/brazilian



& then have supporting articles -
https : // www (dot) coffeemaker (dot) com/brazilian-preparation
https : // www (dot) coffeemaker (dot) com/how-to-make-cafezinho
https : // www (dot) coffeemaker (dot) com/brazilian-coffee-tricks

interlink between them & link back to -category- level (https : // www (dot) coffeemaker (dot) com/brazilian) to keep the most juice?

3. I've seen some silo linking examples and I see everyone linking either through articles back to home page which is fine (I guess if your main goal is to rank your homepage) but I also see people creating supporting articles and using them to rank a category page & they create links pointing from category page to them (through menu links) & then from them back to category page (through contextual links) but why not just use supporting articles and interlink them & link back to category page without category page link to them (to keep all the 'link juice' in it)?

4. How does link juice transfer between pages - I heard 85% goes from linking page to linked page...

- so for example: page A has 100 value & it sends link to page B - it sent 85 value & does page A now only have 15 or? Hope you could understand what I was going for & can help

 

[Ryuzaki]

1) I'd try to rank all of it, with the main goal to ultimately rank the big page that's situated at the top of the silo. Category pages are fine as long as you add some static content to them. It should be far more static content than rolling posts within the silo. You can also fake this out with Parent Pages and Child Pages if you don't want to start hacking up your theme.

But ranking all of it is how you rank the top parts and flow traffic up to them regardless of what they earn themselves. There's something to be said for getting links from relevant pages with SERP visibility and traffic, so yeah, ranking them all is good. You'll flow that link juice on up too.

2) Technically you should use the folder paths to define the silo structure. They are seen as sub-folders, where pages are contained within a topic. The idea is to link down to the individual sub-articles, horizontally between those, and have all of those linking back up to the main page you're trying to rank. You're creating a relevancy net to support the main "silo head."

3) Holy mother of run-on sentence! You shouldn't worry about ranking your homepage. It will rank for your brand terms regardless, and won't rank for much else. Google definitely prefers inner pages for non-brand related search terms these days.

I think you're saying, "Why link the category page down to the support articles? Why not only link the support articles up to the category page?" The reason is that if you follow a strict silo build like that, without links pointing down, then you have a lot of isolated orphan pages, which is bad. It's okay to associate the big page with the little pages and even to "lose some juice" because you never actually lose it. You clone it and then pass portions along through the internal links, while maintaining the normal amount. So by linking around, you can actually boost your juice levels depending on how many iterations Google is willing to follow around your loop. This is why people used to make Link Wheels.

4) Yeah, this is what I'm talking about above. Let's say Page A has 100 juices and sends 85 of them over to Page B, which is the only link on Page A. After that calculation, Page A has 100 juices and Page B has 85. Page A is not left with only 15, it keeps its original 100.

We should note too, related to question 3, that links in the content are going to pass more juice than navigation, sidebar, or footer links, etc. Main contextual content vs. supplementary content. Don't worry about being too strict with your silos, because you're technically going to be forced to break them with all of your other navigation.

Also, I'm a believer that there are other ways to build silo's than strict physical silo's that you're talking about, and I think it comes from Google having to adapt to modern web build conventions, like navigational menus and lots of sidebar and footer content. I call them "virtual silos" and "relevancy mini-nets" but these terms haven't caught on no matter how hard I keep pushing them It has to do with folder layouts, breadcrumbs, relevancy, shared supplementary content, etc. This means that your silo can even extend off of your own website too (like tiered link building, conceptually).

 

[stackcash]

1. The sales funnel and your silo have an inverse relationship. The top of your funnel will be the bottom of your silo. The bottom of the silo, your supporting pages, should be content with top funnel "awareness" intent. The top of your silo, your money page, should be your bottom funnel "buying" intent. The supporting pages will be easier to rank. So, in essence, you'll be ranking those pages first and taking the visitor through the "intent journey" until they hopefully land on the bottom funnel / top silo money page and convert. Building your silo's out like this kill two birds with one stone - seo silo + sales funnel.

2. I think the cascading subdirectory structure is the "traditional" way of doing this. But, I've done it with short URLs like you're suggesting. I like to make a custom sidebar for each silo that links to all pages in the silo when doing it the "non traditional" way.

3. Duhhhh...what?

4. The benefit you'll receive by spending countless hours dialing this in is miniscule. To answer your question, Page A will still have 100 "juices" after linking to Page B - which will then have 85 "juices." Don't waste your time on shit like this. Interlink the silo like mad and you're good to go.

1) I'd try to rank all of it, with the main goal to ultimately rank the big page that's situated at the top of the silo. Category pages are fine as long as you add some static content to them. It should be far more static content than rolling posts within the silo. You can also fake this out with Parent Pages and Child Pages if you don't want to start hacking up your theme.

But ranking all of it is how you rank the top parts and flow traffic up to them regardless of what they earn themselves. There's something to be said for getting links from relevant pages with SERP visibility and traffic, so yeah, ranking them all is good. You'll flow that link juice on up too.

2) Technically you should use the folder paths to define the silo structure. They are seen as sub-folders, where pages are contained within a topic. The idea is to link down to the individual sub-articles, horizontally between those, and have all of those linking back up to the main page you're trying to rank. You're creating a relevancy net to support the main "silo head."

3) Holy mother of run-on sentence! You shouldn't worry about ranking your homepage. It will rank for your brand terms regardless, and won't rank for much else. Google definitely prefers inner pages for non-brand related search terms these days.

I think you're saying, "Why link the category page down to the support articles? Why not only link the support articles up to the category page?" The reason is that if you follow a strict silo build like that, without links pointing down, then you have a lot of isolated orphan pages, which is bad. It's okay to associate the big page with the little pages and even to "lose some juice" because you never actually lose it. You clone it and then pass portions along through the internal links, while maintaining the normal amount. So by linking around, you can actually boost your juice levels depending on how many iterations Google is willing to follow around your loop. This is why people used to make Link Wheels.

4) Yeah, this is what I'm talking about above. Let's say Page A has 100 juices and sends 85 of them over to Page B, which is the only link on Page A. After that calculation, Page A has 100 juices and Page B has 85. Page A is not left with only 15, it keeps its original 100.

We should note too, related to question 3, that links in the content are going to pass more juice than navigation, sidebar, or footer links, etc. Main contextual content vs. supplementary content. Don't worry about being too strict with your silos, because you're technically going to be forced to break them with all of your other navigation.

Also, I'm a believer that there are other ways to build silo's than strict physical silo's that you're talking about, and I think it comes from Google having to adapt to modern web build conventions, like navigational menus and lots of sidebar and footer content. I call them "virtual silos" and "relevancy mini-nets" but these terms haven't caught on no matter how hard I keep pushing them It has to do with folder layouts, breadcrumbs, relevancy, shared supplementary content, etc. This means that your silo can even extend off of your own website too (like tiered link building, conceptually).

Thiiiiisssss friggin' guy always beating me to the punch!

 

[JasonSc]

1. The sales funnel and your silo have an inverse relationship. The top of your funnel will be the bottom of your silo. The bottom of the silo, your supporting pages, should be content with top funnel "awareness" intent. The top of your silo, your money page, should be your bottom funnel "buying" intent. The supporting pages will be easier to rank. So, in essence, you'll be ranking those pages first and taking the visitor through the "intent journey" until they hopefully land on the bottom funnel / top silo money page and convert. Building your silo's out like this kill two birds with one stone - seo silo + sales funnel.

aha moment! This makes the short list of top things I have read this month.

I like to make a custom sidebar for each silo that links to all pages in the silo when doing it the "non-traditional" way.

This is how I do it. I have found it helps a couple of ways. Reduces the number of items in your main nav menu, but keeps from creating orphan pages and is only 2 clicks from the homepage. Increases time on site.

Don't waste your time on shit like this. Interlink the silo like mad and you're good to go.

Agree. Think less and do more, creates better results.

 

[matora97]

1) I'd try to rank all of it, with the main goal to ultimately rank the big page that's situated at the top of the silo. Category pages are fine as long as you add some static content to them. It should be far more static content than rolling posts within the silo. You can also fake this out with Parent Pages and Child Pages if you don't want to start hacking up your theme.

But ranking all of it is how you rank the top parts and flow traffic up to them regardless of what they earn themselves. There's something to be said for getting links from relevant pages with SERP visibility and traffic, so yeah, ranking them all is good. You'll flow that link juice on up too.

2) Technically you should use the folder paths to define the silo structure. They are seen as sub-folders, where pages are contained within a topic. The idea is to link down to the individual sub-articles, horizontally between those, and have all of those linking back up to the main page you're trying to rank. You're creating a relevancy net to support the main "silo head."

3) Holy mother of run-on sentence! You shouldn't worry about ranking your homepage. It will rank for your brand terms regardless, and won't rank for much else. Google definitely prefers inner pages for non-brand related search terms these days.

I think you're saying, "Why link the category page down to the support articles? Why not only link the support articles up to the category page?" The reason is that if you follow a strict silo build like that, without links pointing down, then you have a lot of isolated orphan pages, which is bad. It's okay to associate the big page with the little pages and even to "lose some juice" because you never actually lose it. You clone it and then pass portions along through the internal links, while maintaining the normal amount. So by linking around, you can actually boost your juice levels depending on how many iterations Google is willing to follow around your loop. This is why people used to make Link Wheels.

4) Yeah, this is what I'm talking about above. Let's say Page A has 100 juices and sends 85 of them over to Page B, which is the only link on Page A. After that calculation, Page A has 100 juices and Page B has 85. Page A is not left with only 15, it keeps its original 100.

We should note too, related to question 3, that links in the content are going to pass more juice than navigation, sidebar, or footer links, etc. Main contextual content vs. supplementary content. Don't worry about being too strict with your silos, because you're technically going to be forced to break them with all of your other navigation.

Also, I'm a believer that there are other ways to build silo's than strict physical silo's that you're talking about, and I think it comes from Google having to adapt to modern web build conventions, like navigational menus and lots of sidebar and footer content. I call them "virtual silos" and "relevancy mini-nets" but these terms haven't caught on no matter how hard I keep pushing them It has to do with folder layouts, breadcrumbs, relevancy, shared supplementary content, etc. This means that your silo can even extend off of your own website too (like tiered link building, conceptually).

Haha now that I look at my 3. question I can see what you meant Thank you for the reply, also is a page considered an orphan when it gets links to it but it doesn't link out to anyone? (regarding your 3. question answer)

1. The sales funnel and your silo have an inverse relationship. The top of your funnel will be the bottom of your silo. The bottom of the silo, your supporting pages, should be content with top funnel "awareness" intent. The top of your silo, your money page, should be your bottom funnel "buying" intent. The supporting pages will be easier to rank. So, in essence, you'll be ranking those pages first and taking the visitor through the "intent journey" until they hopefully land on the bottom funnel / top silo money page and convert. Building your silo's out like this kill two birds with one stone - seo silo + sales funnel.

2. I think the cascading subdirectory structure is the "traditional" way of doing this. But, I've done it with short URLs like you're suggesting. I like to make a custom sidebar for each silo that links to all pages in the silo when doing it the "non traditional" way.

3. Duhhhh...what?

4. The benefit you'll receive by spending countless hours dialing this in is miniscule. To answer your question, Page A will still have 100 "juices" after linking to Page B - which will then have 85 "juices." Don't waste your time on shit like this. Interlink the silo like mad and you're good to go.



Thiiiiisssss friggin' guy always beating me to the punch!

Yeah my 3. question is a mess I was thinking of doing something like that, I got the idea from evolvingSEO guy. I found a plugin that links to other 'related content' inside of your post. Thanks for the reply

 

[JasonSc]

Haha now that I look at my 3. question I can see what you meant Thank you for the reply, also is a page considered an orphan when it gets links to it but it doesn't link out to anyone? (regarding your 3. question answer)

Basically, it's the inverse. There is no menu navigation or internal links to that page. A user would not be able to find the page when on your site.

A majority of the time orphan pages are bad.

 

[matora97]

Basically, it's the inverse. There is no menu navigation or internal links to that page. A user would not be able to find the page when on your site.

A majority of the time orphan pages are bad.

Yeah I get it now. A lot to learn in this game

 

[socialpatterns]

1. You can have the category page be the money page if you like. There are multiple ways to use siloing. Traditionally your money page would be the top, not bottom. The subpages support the main silo topic.

2. You can choose whichever URL structure makes sense to you. A physical silo is typically one with the URL structure as you stated:
example: https : // www (dot) coffeemaker (dot) com/coffee/foreign/Brazilian
Wheras this would be a virtual silo:
i.e. https : // www (dot) coffeemaker (dot) com/coffee
https : // www (dot) coffeemaker (dot) com/foreign
https : // www (dot) coffeemaker (dot) com/Brazilian

3. You would link up to your main silo page. Traditionally in a Silo, the rule of thumb is to link up.

4. I don’t think it's that simple. I think there are other factors, if you look at Googles patents. They probably base the distribution of link equity (partly) via the “random surfer model”.

 

[freshpeppermint]

Alright, I have a question about silos. I recently learned about silos (I knew them but now i know a lot more) and sorta made categories. Is having too many categories bad?
For example: 4 or 5 layer deep category? Vs just having 3-4 layers deep? Even I have 1 or 2 articles which can be grouped? How many layers deep is bad?

Also will having posts show up in 2 different categories do any harm SEO wise?

Also, should I change my permalinks to mywebsite.com/category/subcategory/post instead of mywebsite.com/post?? I also added breadcrumbs.

(Got the quiz questions sorted myself.)

 

[bernard]

Also will having posts show up in 2 different categories do any harm SEO wise?

Showing up in multiple categories is fine, but to me the issue is if the post can be found with 2 urls.

If use a standard permalink like /category/post, then the post will be found with 2 different urls, and though I think SEO plugins and maybe even Wordpress, use the "rel=canonical", I really wouldn't like that.

 

[freshpeppermint]

Showing up in multiple categories is fine, but to me the issue is if the post can be found with 2 urls.

If use a standard permalink like /category/post, then the post will be found with 2 different urls, and though I think SEO plugins and maybe even Wordpress, use the "rel=canonical", I really wouldn't like that.

Dam that's true.

Quick question about silos:

I am watching this video and basically, it shows:
Smart Home & Automation Button Home Page -> Complete Guide To Home Security Systems -> Top Security Cameras -> Ring Camera and other cameras Reviews.

What if you wrote up an article about a product and recommended another one, in that case, for the silo effect would you post on the Top Security Cameras Page? And let's say you create a review for A crappy camera where you provide an alternative, do you link all the other available camera reviews you have on your website?

In this video, he mentions not to use category pages and he shows outdoorgearlab as an example. however, if we look they have a category section with pagination.

These guys have reviewed way more sleeping pads than this however they only show this many in the compare section. Why is that?

Why do https://www.security.org/home-security-systems/ <- they send a link to this page: https://www.security.org/security-cameras/best/ near the top button rather than this one https://www.security.org/security-cameras/

Should you sent home security systems -> security cameras -> best security cameras?

 

[Ryuzaki]

In this video, he mentions not to use category pages and he shows outdoorgearlab as an example. however, if we look they have a category section with pagination.

Classic case of "Do as I say, not as I do". Sad, many such cases!

These guys have reviewed way more sleeping pads than this however they only show this many in the compare section. Why is that?

Let's say they covered 100 of these pads so far. Does the user really need the bottom 70? Is anyone going to sort through all 100 and choose from the worst of the bunch? Users don't need that many options. The reason they're on your site is because they want you to have already done the hard work of filtering through it and just tell them which the best are. 3-5 options are enough, let alone the 17 or so in your screenshot.

Why do https://www.security.org/home-security-systems/ <- they send a link to this page: https://www.security.org/security-cameras/best/ near the top button rather than this one https://www.security.org/security-cameras/

Because they're trying to manipulate the flow of page rank directly to the page that earns them money. Because that works better than getting all flustered about these strict silo concepts.