Tom Belfort's AMA about SEO/Siloing/PBNs/Link Building 2019+

banto123 said:
Don't change anything that is ranking page 1 or 2. Tom has already said this on several occasions.
Click to expand...
I second that!
Once I expanded one of my articles (added 1.5K words) that was ranking on pg 1 in hopes to push it higher up the SERP. You'd think adding more content would make it better in the eyes of Google. Nope! It fell off pg 1 to the middle of pg 2. When I removed the added paragraphs it immediately crawled back up to pg 1.
topakins said:
Anyone noticed any serious issue with Googlebot crawling nowadays? All my pages are indexed but they are not crawled unless I manually submit to index in GSC
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Yes, I even have to submit them 2-3 times till they start moving.
 
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In one of my website, I've got a post targeted for a long-tail keyword. Now website gained some authority and I want to target the main keyword

Long Tail Keyword: Best X for Y
Main Keyword: Best X

How do you handle this situation? I see only two options there but not sure what option is the best.

- Write a New article and 301 the old article to the new article.
- Update the old article and craft the title to target the main keyword.
 
JinxerCraft said:
In one of my website, I've got a post targeted for a long-tail keyword. Now website gained some authority and I want to target the main keyword

Long Tail Keyword: Best X for Y
Main Keyword: Best X

How do you handle this situation? I see only two options there but not sure what option is the best.

- Write a New article and 301 the old article to the new article.
- Update the old article and craft the title to target the main keyword.
Click to expand...
I believe these two keywords have a different search intent. Why not make two articles?
 
JinxerCraft said:
Google doesn't get the search intent every time and it can cause keyword cannibalization
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I guess it depends on the niche, intents, and modifiers you use with these key phrases. Why not do A/B testing?
 
Shopllc said:
I guess it depends on the niche, intents, and modifiers you use with these key phrases. Why not do A/B testing?
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I want to know what OP handles this kind of situation. About testings, I would do what OP recommends.
No offense, please don't make it a discussion thread. Leave your questions and let OP answer the question.

Thanks!
 
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JinxerCraft said:
I want to know what OP handles this kind of situation. About testings, I would do what OP recommends.
No offense, please don't make it a discussion thread. Leave your questions and let OP answer the question.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Sorry dude!
Btw, still waiting for a reply from OP to my older post too.
 
I'm launching a price comparison website. It will have millions of pages.

How would you increase the amount of pages indexed by Google and what sort of backlinks would you build? As it doesn't really have a niche.

Thanks :-)
 
Hey @splishsplash - thank you! I've enjoyed reading this entire thread.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on SEO plugins? Yoast & the like. I tend to think they make you focus on all the wrong things & make your posts come off as far less natural, if you follow their advice. What say you?
 
I'll read up when I have some time and answer people
 
splishsplash said:
I'll read up when I have some time and answer people
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Hi @splishsplash

Thanks for the great info

Trying the silo style recommended by you. But stuck on the below scenario.

I have a page called “Test Page” and a category called “Test Category”. I have 301 redirected the “Test Category” to “Test Page”

When I create a new post under “Test Category”, the breadcrumb will be
Home >> “Test Category” >> New Post

but instead it should be (Desired Result)
Home >> “Test Page” >> New Post as I have done a 301 redirection

Is there any way to change the breadcrumb as the above desired result or 301 redirect should be fine without any SEO impact and I can leave the original breadcrumb as it is?
 
Hi @splishsplash,

I have been following the idea of siloing for a while now, enjoying your threads and posts about it.

Now I have a question concerning restructuring in a case where I did not follow the "rules" completely.

In my understanding the physical silo should look like this:

wiki/
wiki/office-software
wiki/office-software/microsoft-office

in reality it looks like this:

wiki/
wiki/office-software
wiki/microsoft-office --> the last element does not contain the sub-category

My question: Is it worth the effort (redirecting) to change the URL-structure from wiki/microsoft-office to wiki/office-software/microsoft-office or should I leave it as it is, since it is ranking fairly good nevertheless?
M
 
Hi, I am building a tech news related site as a long term project(never done a WH one before). I haven't started building backlinks to it and have posted 160K words of content in 3 months. What kind of backlinks and strategy should I use to build it as a brand News Media Outlet like beebom(dot)com or similar sites? Monetization is via Adsense.
 
ElCamino said:
Hi @splishsplash,

I have been following the idea of siloing for a while now, enjoying your threads and posts about it.

Now I have a question concerning restructuring in a case where I did not follow the "rules" completely.

In my understanding the physical silo should look like this:

wiki/
wiki/office-software
wiki/office-software/microsoft-office

in reality it looks like this:

wiki/
wiki/office-software
wiki/microsoft-office --> the last element does not contain the sub-category

My question: Is it worth the effort (redirecting) to change the URL-structure from wiki/microsoft-office to wiki/office-software/microsoft-office or should I leave it as it is, since it is ranking fairly good nevertheless?
M
Click to expand...

Might be a good idea to get rid of the virtual silo altogether as they are not as beneficial as they once where.

If you look at all the really big affiliate sites they don't use virtual silos.
 
I see even you using the word "over-optimized" regarding KW a lot. Would you give me a rough example of what over optimization of a KW would look like on a 100-200 word article? Is there a rough guideline formula you use or you just use Yoast as a rule of thumb?
 
Shopllc said:
Thank you again for all your answers!
Is it better to silo by product type or by another category.

For example, I have dog food, cat food, hamster food, and dog toys, cat toys, hamster toys, and dog clothing, cat clothing, hamster clothing.

Do I silo like this:
Toys: dogs, cats, hamsters;
Food: dogs, cats, hamsters;
Clothing: dogs, cats, hamsters.

Or like this:
Dogs: food, toys, clothing;
Cats: food, toys, clothing;
Hamsters: food, toys, clothing;

Or some other way?

Also what if I have the same product that fits several categories? For example, a dress that fits both very big hamsters and very small dogs. :D
What do I do?

Thank you!!!
Click to expand...

In my opinion, if your niche is about pets, I'd prefer the second one. You'd want to categorize pets at first.
 
Hey @splishsplash , don't know if you will still reply to this thread but I just had a question related to siloing a new site.

I'll use the health niche as an example. Let's say I have 4 silos on the site.

https://healthsite.com/fat-losshttps://healthsite.com/strengh-traininghttps://healthsite.com/dietinghttps://healthsite.com/silo4
Now the thing is if I write the content myself, the frequency of the posts will be slow. So, according to you, should I try to build one silo first (say strength training) and keep the others empty (as this will increase the silo relevancy in the eyes of Google)?

Or should I add an equal amount of posts in each one of them?

If I focus on 1 silo in the start, I will be able to create better relevancy for strength training, and maybe I'll start ranking for strength training keywords.

On the other hand, adding content on each silo at the same time will result in lower relevancy within the silos (because of less content in each silo).

What are your thoughts on this? Do correct me if I'm wrong.

And thanks for the amazing threads on this forum, I learned a lot of stuff from you.

Waiting for your response.
 
Deepesh Sharma said:
Hey @splishsplash , don't know if you will still reply to this thread but I just had a question related to siloing a new site.

I'll use the health niche as an example. Let's say I have 4 silos on the site.

https://healthsite.com/fat-losshttps://healthsite.com/strengh-traininghttps://healthsite.com/dietinghttps://healthsite.com/silo4
Now the thing is if I write the content myself, the frequency of the posts will be slow. So, according to you, should I try to build one silo first (say strength training) and keep the others empty (as this will increase the silo relevancy in the eyes of Google)?

Or should I add an equal amount of posts in each one of them?

If I focus on 1 silo in the start, I will be able to create better relevancy for strength training, and maybe I'll start ranking for strength training keywords.

On the other hand, adding content on each silo at the same time will result in lower relevancy within the silos (because of less content in each silo).

What are your thoughts on this? Do correct me if I'm wrong.

And thanks for the amazing threads on this forum, I learned a lot of stuff from you.

Waiting for your response.
Click to expand...

1 Silo at a time. This makes it more efficient to rank. You will get an ROI faster.

The more posts in your silo, the stronger all the posts in that silo become for ranking. If you distribute it efforts across multiple silos at once, you just end up with a ton of weak posts until you manage to fill all the silos. Fill 1 silo at a time, and while your doing the 2nd silo, your first one will be earning you cash.
 
Dark Sky said:
1 Silo at a time. This makes it more efficient to rank. You will get an ROI faster.

The more posts in your silo, the stronger all the posts in that silo become for ranking. If you distribute it efforts across multiple silos at once, you just end up with a ton of weak posts until you manage to fill all the silos. Fill 1 silo at a time, and while you're doing the 2nd silo, your first one will be earning you cash.
Click to expand...
So, should I just keep the other silos empty for the time being? And what if one of my primary silos is too broad in itself? Should I add the content in a small silo that's narrow first?

Here's an example -
https://pianosite.com/pianohttps://pianosite.com/lessonshttps://pianosite.com/accessories
I should be adding content to the 'accessories' silo first, right? Because the piano silo is way too competitive (it'll have sub-silos as well, like silos about each type of piano, etc).

Edit: Just had a thought that maybe I should niche down to just 1 type of piano first. Then, when I have enough authority, I could expand to other types as well. Instead of having silo for piano, lessons, and accessories, I can just add Grand Piano, Lessons, Accessories, etc.

This way the primary silo won't be too big, I guess.
 
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