4 Tier on Silo structure, any harm?

primeCS · Jul 28, 2016

Hi seniors, I am newbie and really need you help when I come to building my structure.
I have read from a few places that recommend only 3 tiers in silo structure building.
Therefore I just wish to clarify whether does it hurt a site's seo if a site is built to tier 4 like the attached image.

I am using the recent hype of pokemon as an example.
Right now i am at the point where I am confused whether I should build those tier 4 articles or not. (Of cos i dont mind adding more articles to my website, but i just wanna make sure it doesnt hurt).

Some of the resources that suggests 3-tiers structure:
In this post, BassTrackerBoats mentioned: "I do only go 3 deep as much more than that causes an issue with the search engine bots from what I have experienced."

Also found this by searching google: http://www.affiliatemarketertraining.com/3-tier-website-link-structure/

Really need you advise on this, thank you in advance.

IceHD · Jul 28, 2016

I've did this, something like this
HP -> Main Silo -> Category -> Sub-Category -> Products
As you can probably tell, this is an eCommerce website, and yes, a few other tricks were involved, but silo worked very well for that project!

ThopHayt · Jul 28, 2016

Well here is a typical silo, as posted by @BassTrackerBoats a while back.

davids355 · Jul 28, 2016

I have also done a setup similar with 4 levels like yours in the OP. I dont think its a problem.

I am also linking across like this for example -

home > cars > red cars > red cars with spoilers
home > trucks > red trucks > red trucks with spoilers
home > vans > red vans > red vans with spoilers
home > caravans > red caravans > red caravans with spoilers

Then I am linking for example red cars and red trucks to each other. This is just an example of four categories but I have say 10 categories and within each category another 10 child pages and so on. each catagories links to and from its child pages and so on as normal, but each category cross links to its immediate partners either side.

I dont know if thats something anyone else does but I picked the idea up from another source.

primeCS · Jul 29, 2016

ThopHayt said:
Well here is a typical silo, as posted by @BassTrackerBoats a while back.

Hi ThopHayt, if i am not wrong, the power page and anchor article are on the same layer as the other blog posts.
So effectively this structure that you mentioned is still 3-tier.

The purpose of my thread is actually to find out the actual reason why many seniors prefer to use 3-tiers instead of 4-tier structure, and whether will there be any hidden negative effect of using 4-tier that people are unaware of.

BillTomy · Jul 29, 2016

It's really great share man

davids355 said:
I have also done a setup similar with 4 levels like yours in the OP. I dont think its a problem.

I am also linking across like this for example -

home > cars > red cars > red cars with spoilers
home > trucks > red trucks > red trucks with spoilers
home > vans > red vans > red vans with spoilers
home > caravans > red caravans > red caravans with spoilers

Then I am linking for example red cars and red trucks to each other. This is just an example of four categories but I have say 10 categories and within each category another 10 child pages and so on. each catagories links to and from its child pages and so on as normal, but each category cross links to its immediate partners either side.

I dont know if thats something anyone else does but I picked the idea up from another source.

upstarter · Jul 29, 2016

Example;
Pokemons (Home Page) > Water-Type Pokemons > Magikarp > Gyarados

See, that is 4 levels/tier deep. You HAVE to do this 4 tier silos for certain types of Pokemons, right?

For Lapras (does not evolve according to Wiki), the silo would be just 3 levels deep;
Pokemons > Water-Type Pokemons > Lapras

Now why do many seniors prefer 3 level-deep silos?
Maybe because they think that Google gives less priority on articles/page/post that are on the 4th level of the silo.

Not true in my experience or in the niche I'm in.
Just make sure that the page on the 4th level of the silo is very well SEO-optimised, linking to the 3rd level, with the 3rd level linking to the... you get the idea.

MikeyMikey13 · Aug 1, 2016

Got a question, I have normal pages I would like to use as my silo page using wp.

This is not a cat page but is there any way I could make it so it went like this /silo-page/post-name without it being a cat page?

upstarter · Aug 1, 2016

MikeyMikey13 said:
Got a question, I have normal pages I would like to use as my silo page using wp.

This is not a cat page but is there any way I could make it so it went like this /silo-page/post-name without it being a cat page?

Easy way: Create a child page so that it will look like /silo-page/child-page/. The effect is the same.

Hard way: Create a page targeting your 'keyword', something like 'Blue Buttons'. Now create a category and name it 'Blue Buttons'. Then
modify WP so that whenever somebody clicks on the CATEGORY, they will land on the PAGE that you named 'Blue Buttons'. Hey, like I said, it's the hard way.

MikeyMikey13 · Aug 1, 2016

upstarter said:
Easy way: Create a child page so that it will look like /silo-page/child-page/. The effect is the same.

Hard way: Create a page targeting your 'keyword', something like 'Blue Buttons'. Now create a category and name it 'Blue Buttons'. Now
modify WP so that whenever somebody click on the CATEGORY, they will land on the PAGE that you named 'Blue Buttons'. Hey, like I said, it's the hard way.

the hard way sounds like it would suit better as my structure is:

domain.com/region/town and I would like to make posts like domain.com/region/post or domain.com/region/town/post - do you know how I would go around changing the slug? I was thinking a 301 however that wouldn't change the url.

upstarter · Aug 1, 2016

MikeyMikey13 said:
the hard way sounds like it would suit better as my structure is:

domain.com/region/town and I would like to make posts like domain.com/region/post or domain.com/region/town/post - do you know how I would go around changing the slug? I was thinking a 301 however that wouldn't change the url.

Here's the tutorial that I used. The hack (best answer) is still working with the latest Wordpress version.
http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/...e-wordpress-to-show-pages-instead-of-category

Narend · Apr 24, 2017

upstarter said:
Example;
Pokemons (Home Page) > Water-Type Pokemons > Magikarp > Gyarados

See, that is 4 levels/tier deep. You HAVE to do this 4 tier silos for certain types of Pokemons, right?

For Lapras (does not evolve according to Wiki), the silo would be just 3 levels deep;
Pokemons > Water-Type Pokemons > Lapras

Now why do many seniors prefer 3 level-deep silos?
Maybe because they think that Google gives less priority on articles/page/post that are on the 4th level of the silo.

Not true in my experience or in the niche I'm in.
Just make sure that the page on the 4th level of the silo is very well SEO-optimised, linking to the 3rd level, with the 3rd level linking to the... you get the idea.

I'm just a total super duper NOOB

i like the way you gave explanation

but the last word that i quoted and bold, where is that going to?

somewhere outside our blog?

linkin' back to the 4th level?

to the homepage?

thank for the explanation anyway, 1 thumbs+ from me

4 Tier on Silo structure, any harm?

primeCS

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