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We are currently using our hosting company site (part of our organisation) as our hub, but this brings its own problems.
So we went off on a bit of brainstorm and came up with venn diagram / flowchart of how the sites we are promoting and developing could be linked together to our advantage.
Adding a directory type hub is an idea I have always shyed away from on the basis that the maintenance and development cost will not give the return on investment that we want from the site. However your discussion has sort of changed my mind, it is an inevitable consequence of expanding an SEO business.
But for the moment we are not going down that route and instead came up with the concept of a mini-cluster to allow us to cross link between unconnected domains.
The thinking being that if we have a small number of sites providing services that are non-industry related we can then heavily cross-link those sites without losing theme, and each of those sites then can be used to loosely theme the client sites, which again can be crosslinked extensively. Together with a significant linking program for each of the sites we can provide enough incoming page rank to power the cluster.
Given this cluster, when the company has developed to an extent where the directory style hub becomes cost effective it becomes easy to slot into the center of the cluster.
Please check back in and let us know how this works for you. I'm very interested in your results.
Please just call me Ian, I'm not one for hiding my identity behind nicks.
At the moment the strategy we are employing is working well for us, though the areas that we are promoting in are not particularly competitive (I would not like to go into a really competitive field just yet)
We have seen a threefold increase in orders/enquiries over the last couple of months since starting to implement the hosting company hub in a more structured fashion. Whether this is just seasonal is yet to be seen. The real proof of the pudding so to speak will be during the summer which is notoriously quiet for us.
I will let you know further results when the other central cluster sites are tied in more effectively and more satellite/client site theming has been implemented.
Previous to this we had been implementing the hub theory in a very loose manner with little thought to theming.
My main problems are the lack of money to employ someone to develop the hub/cluster on a permanent basis, we develop ad hoc in between development of paying client sites.
I am looking forward to the day when my own ecomm and hosting sites are making enough money to allow us not to take on further clients to make ends meet. We are about 2/3rds of the way there at the moment.
I find putting the effort into the initial planning stage helps greatly to keep redundant costs down while maintaining that my themes stay pure. It's just a great deal of work initially. You should see some of the plans I develop for even the smallest sites. Or at least what folk’s thought were small sites.
This is for anyone interested and certainly isn't directed out you Ian. I am often surprised to see how people develop a site. It's almost as if the are putting the roof on before they build the foundation. If anyone decides to take on such an ambitious project as a SEO hub or any hub for that matter, you'll find most of your efforts spent originally in the planning stages. I found with a strong and clear road map to follow then the pieces can quickly fall into place. Of course even the best-laid plans need to stay fluid and allow for wiggle room.
In developing the actual hub, during the planning stage I map everything out. I list all the top-level canonicals that I’ll use to develop my various themes. Below that on the spreadsheet I then list each of the first level sub-directories under each canonical. Under the first sub-directory I list the second level down directory and if there are some then beneath those come the final third level. I really try to keep my site to only three directory levels deep. If I find I’m needing another level it’s often the case that what I actually need is either a new first sub-directory or even a new canonical.
I often create what folks who are looking at the map initially feel are redundant pages. They’re not if they are coming off of a separate canonical because they will be themed for that canonical. An example would be a services canonical that is all about the services the company offers. This is a terrific way to introduce then the various canonicals and have an opportunity for vertical linking. With the original example I used above I suggested both a tax consultant and a credit card company. Off my services canonical I would then develop a small path for tax consulting and one for credit and I still love an_untaken_nick’s suggestion of money management so I would develop these under that theme. Then I could link them to the money canonical at the point they are referenced and it would certainly make sense.
BTW: nice thread, I currently have a hub of "2". I guess you can't really call it a hub. I am just hoping that the linking back and forth isn't going to penalize me. Both of them are travel related sites though.
Would this suffice as the basics of an ideal hub?:
a travel site linking to a site that has travel and money content that links to a money site. The middle site is the bridge between the two orginal sites.
A canonical is another term used to describe what folks refer to as a sub-domain, third level domain (I never understood that one) vanity, alias, virtual domain. I know there are more and I think that can be very confusing so I’ve simply opted for the technical or mathematical term, canonical. You are not the only one to bring this up so please don’t feel alone with this one. I have simply attempted to brand a term, which does seem to be catching on, most likely reflective of the power of this forum. If you’re curious you can also run a site search for the term, found at the top of the page, and you’ll find several discussions on the subject. Search for canonical domain on Google and you’ll find several hosts that you the term.
As to the second part of your post in my opinion you have described as you’ve suggest, a bridge between to themes that works to tie them together in a way that won’t dilute the themes. Even with a limited number of sites to connect certainly doesn’t diminish it’s effectiveness as a hub is really a site the connects other sites. I believe to be a truly effective hub though it should be more than just another site acting as a bridge.
In this discussion the main focus has been on a SEO hub, which relates basically to a variety of unrelated sites and individual domains with a unique set of what could be considered obstacles that could, if not treated correctly, dilute themes when linking them together. This can be true for any large hub, or even a mid size hub with only a minimum amount of unrelated sites.
Hub - A connection device for networks. Allows multiple segments or computers to connect and share packets of information.
Definition provided by Jeremy Reis learnthat.com/define/h/hub.shtml
This quote is in terms of an actual computer hardware hub but I think it works well for a website hub as well. We’re connecting networks or sites, allowing for the various segments or sites and/or individual pages to connect and if we keep on themes it then makes sense for them to share packets of information.
From searchnetworking.techtarget.com I enjoyed also the quote…
In data communications, a hub is a place of convergence where data arrives from one or more directions and is forwarded out in one or more other directions
If you read back through this whole discussion you will also see a post by Mona which describes the concept of a thesis and with respect for the discussion here about hubs I think she rightfully captured the unique flavor of a hub with her definition.
