Is The Silo Structure Still A Viable Option?

xXShaddowTXx · Apr 28, 2012

Hello!

I was wondering if the Silo Structuring System is still usable, Since the old old old Google Cafiene update Google has been working more with theme then keywords, so I was wondering if it matters that the search engines crawl your site in a specific order now..?

It could go both ways, it could help your site by gradually changing the theme [if you have multiple sections in the same niche] or it could hurt you by making your site look smaller.

Does Google like straight forward page to page sites? Or does Google like massively tangled 'holy cow didn't I crawl this page already oh well crawl it again' sites?

NulledCode · Apr 28, 2012

From what i've been reading, Google likes sites that are user friendly. To me, a well structured silo site is easy to navigate and it groups your related keywords/content. I only see positives using a silo.

xXShaddowTXx · Apr 28, 2012

Alright good to hear. I was worried when I started looking at the dates for Silo Structuring videos and content.

What about making a Silo structure with WP? There are difficulties since it's a blog so moving from article to article without being linked to another category would be difficult. Do you recommend nofollowing my navigation area?

tensureFP · Apr 28, 2012

From what I have read, making a proper silo on WP is tough. Good luck with it.

true3000 · Apr 28, 2012

tensureFP said:
From what I have read, making a proper silo on WP is tough. Good luck with it.

Its easier to do using pages instead of posts. There's a couple plugins that can also help.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

xXShaddowTXx · Apr 28, 2012

pages instead of posts.. alright I see.

Thank you

inets · Apr 28, 2012

Creating a Silo structure with posts is just as easy as creating it with pages. All you have to do is decide how deep you want your posts to go, what is going to link to the next and how the last is going to loop. For what ever reason people make this simple method over complicated.

Your general Silo structure runs like this:

Lets say your going to go 5 deep

Category links to Post 1 - Links to Post 2 - Links to Post 3 - Links to Post 4 - Links to Post 5 - Post 5 Loops Back and links to all posts including the Category. I never actually loop my last post to all previous posts so I can keep posting within that category. All my posts link to the next of course and back to it's main category. I do this primarily because my category title will be a highly competitive term so i want to try and get as much link juice to it as possible by ranking my posts and driving traffic to the main category.

xXShaddowTXx · Apr 28, 2012

inets said:
Creating a Silo structure with posts is just as easy as creating it with pages. All you have to do is decide how deep you want your posts to go, what is going to link to the next and how the last is going to loop. For what ever reason people make this simple method over complicated.

Your general Silo structure runs like this:

Lets say your going to go 5 deep

Category links to Post 1 - Links to Post 2 - Links to Post 3 - Links to Post 4 - Links to Post 5 - Post 5 Loops Back and links to all posts including the Category. I never actually loop my last post to all previous posts so I can keep posting within that category. All my posts link to the next of course and back to it's main category. I do this primarily because my category title will be a highly competitive term so i want to try and get as much link juice to it as possible by ranking my posts and driving traffic to the main category.

How about navigation? Having users have to read through every single one [who knows how many, maybe even a hundred] of your posts in one category to get to a specific one isn't ideal.

Since the Category only links to Post 1, how can you create a "safe" area that links to your recent posts, posts of interest, etc. without messing up the structure?

true3000 · Apr 28, 2012

xXShaddowTXx said:
How about navigation? Having users have to read through every single one [who knows how many, maybe even a hundred] of your posts in one category to get to a specific one isn't ideal.

Since the Category only links to Post 1, how can you create a "safe" area that links to your recent posts, posts of interest, etc. without messing up the structure?

Exactly my point with using pages. I have found that if you don't want to use a siloed category of posts and would rather use an actual page with its own unique content, then in my experience pages are easier to silo. Wordpress is natively setup to silo posts and categories, which is super easy, but the problem is that those categories don't provide much value when they are just summaries of all the posts in the categories. Using pages and a couple plugins allows you to assign a parent page to correctly silo.

Again, just my experience. There is definitely debate among which ones are better to use for this purpose. You can do it both ways but will depend on your preferences.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

NulledCode · Apr 28, 2012

I wrote about this in another post http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...-creating-silo-structure-using-wordpress.html I am currently doing this to build an authority site. I'm using Pages for the keywords i want to rank for. You can use the WP Page List plugin to list your related subpages on Page. I then create articles that link to my Pages. My articles are grouped by keywords with a category for each keyword. I also use the catlist plugin to list articles under a certain category on my Pages. This way it makes myPages look like a mini blog constantly being updated with related articles. I change my robots.txt file to block /category/*/ because these category pages are listed on my Pages, essentially adding a Catgories page on my main Page.

inets · Apr 28, 2012

The silo structure can be created to link out from two specific categories if you choose. If I decide that I want to segregate one particular theme within the structure I'll go through and create an additional category for those posts and have them link out to the original one and then also the new one. I've never tried this as it seems to time consuming.

But the thing you have to remember though, if you have an authority website which has hundreds of posts split up in various categories isn't going to stop posts from being buried, there's no escaping that regardless how you set up your site. What justifies that is the fact that your able to rank those posts for their targeted keywords and thousands of other related searches. The theory behind it is that people who come to your site will do so by entering through their search term.

inets · Apr 28, 2012

I've seen those same debates as well and have never joined in their discussion because it can be set up both ways. As you mention it comes down to preference.

true3000 said:
Exactly my point with using pages. I have found that if you don't want to use a siloed category of posts and would rather use an actual page with its own unique content, then in my experience pages are easier to silo. Wordpress is natively setup to silo posts and categories, which is super easy, but the problem is that those categories don't provide much value when they are just summaries of all the posts in the categories. Using pages and a couple plugins allows you to assign a parent page to correctly silo.

Again, just my experience. There is definitely debate among which ones are better to use for this purpose. You can do it both ways but will depend on your preferences.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

true3000 · Apr 28, 2012

inets said:
I've seen those same debates as well and have never joined in their discussion because it can be set up both ways. As you mention it comes down to preference.

I agree...no use in debating the topic but rather to answer the OP, which is yes it is still very effective and can be done quite easily using Wordpress. Until there is data to say otherwise, I highly recommend using a content silo strategy.

Is The Silo Structure Still A Viable Option?

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