paynt - 7:37 pm on Nov 29, 2001 (gmt 0)

Here’s my part 2 and if you’re not too bored I will then move on to part 3.

These were some very complex questions and I’m sorry but take up a lot of room to try and respond.

Very good points on linking WebGuerrilla and it’s true what you say about crosslinking. If you approach it in the purest sense of the word then you may want to take a look at it from my position. Not that mine is any better or that I don’t push the envelope myself. With the pet theme though, one I have used in reality, I did on accident crosslink my cats with my dogs and I did see dilution which took several months to rectify. Since I cleaned that up the individual satellites appear stronger. That may be a tough one to prove though because of all the other variables involved. [It’s all in the playground of my mind.]

When it comes to incoming links though I am much less of a purest but that’s a discussion for another day.

Another point I’d like to make is I am not taking other posts into consideration here with my response. WebGuerrilla makes so many fine points that I’d get lost if I tried to respond to those along with original post I was asked to comment on. Hopefully as we digest this we will all have a chance to look at each of the parts in question.

One reason I am getting confused is my main terms are somewhat synonymous without all using the same root word (i.e. they don't all use just "management" as a root word). So while exec training and management training are similar in my mind, and perhaps the surfers mind, what about the SEs (particularly Google)?

Point 6: [I am other using points for reference purposes so I can relate back to or can be questioned on specific comments. I'd get lost otherwise :)]

Management training is a much broader term than executive training with executive management training even more specific. If I were creating a theme around this I would opt for the more specific executive management training and work back from there. Building a page around this term, leading back to the more generalized pages that act as facilitators of the more specific and focused terms.

With management training you have executives, mid management, foremen, team leaders and the list goes on. If you have the content to support each of these they can be the bottom of the pyramid or the spokes on the wheel that tie into a more generalized management training page. These act to support the theme of management training.

My inclination is to pick #1) Management Training as the Level 1 overall theme of my site. Because this is the most trafficked term. It is also the major category that both ODP and Yahoo use. At this point my head starts to hurt as I try to figure out how to come up with subtopics if I use this as a overall them for the site.

Point 7: Big question – Is this really what your site about or are we speaking in general terms and using Management Training as an example?

You have a good point here and one that I depend on in developing any site. I always go to the directories initially to see where my site will ultimately fit. How are the directories structuring this type of information? Take your clues from there. Many sites are attracted to getting listed in the highest level available for what they have to offer. Others follow the rule of thumb that motivates them to find the closest niche category that fits.

My way of thinking of subtopics is to ask myself "what is an example of this?"

Point 8: I will refer again to Point 1 above because this is how I determine my sub-topics. I actually get my main theme from my sub-topics not the other way around.

The questions that follow relate specifically to the terms Management this and that and I prefer to keep my comments more general. I’ll also let Brett comment on specific pyramid questions.

Should I use the primary terms to define the subdirectories, and have pages targeting the 2-word terms within that as well? Something like this? www.mydomain.com/management-training/management-training.htm

Point 9: Everyone has their own method of structuring a site and I think each is dependent on so many variables. I can only speak for myself here. I often [not always] use canonicals and a search for that term will provide much content on many of my theories.

Basically what it comes down to for me is each satellite is a separate canonical. I try to not take it out more that three levels from my base canonical. The canonical page itself is often a general explanation of what that canonical is about with a lead into each of the support sub-topics I’m including. The next level are the pages I need to support this canonical. Pets are my favorite examples because the are so obvious.

cat.mypetsite.com/health/
cat.mypetsite.com/health/disease/
cat.mypetsite.com/health/hairball/
cat.mypetsite.com/product/
cat.mypetsite.com/product/leash/
cat.mypetsite.com/product/bowl/

If I need to then I can take bowl down to specific companies or color or whatever works to support my overall theme of cats

This is a long post again so stay tuned if you’re interested and I’ll see if I can wind this up. I hope this is of some use to you egomaniac and others as well. These are only meant to be examples and certainly doesn’t come close to the level of information that Brett provided in:
Themes part 1
[webmasterworld.com...]
Themes part 2
[webmasterworld.com...]

I’ve also gathered many of the theme and canonical discussions into
[webmasterworld.com...]