Newbie Question(s) so dumb, you're afraid to even ask!

redsox said:
Hi all.
What can you recommend fast themes for Wordpress from free?
Thanks!
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BuSo theme made by @Ryuzaki is free.

Hello theme is free and fast and made for Elementor.

Probably quite a few others, but they require you to know your css skills.

I'd probably rather save up for WP Astra.
 
Generatepress is a good one. Astra WP the free version is pretty good in my opinion. I use it on my newer sites but I know how to do some css customization.
 
I used in projects Elementor and Astra, but I couldn't get good speed figures. But I didn't customize the css.
 
redsox said:
I used in projects Elementor and Astra, but I couldn't get good speed figures. But I didn't customize the css.
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Elementor is the problem here.

It's impossible to get good page speeds with Elementor.
 
On creating a silo and topic clusters:
  • I've identified categories and sub-categories for my niche (a knowledge base on a specific machine). Based on keyword searches, there're a lot of topics I can write within each sub-category. Should they be written as Pages or Posts, or would it not matter in Google's eyes?
  • If as Posts, would the site structure be better as a physical silo (site.com/category/sub-category/post) or a mix with categories and subcategories in physical silos and posts in virtual silos (site.com/post). I envision my site to have a few hundred content pieces.
  • Either way, if i want to cover a later article that fits (and should internally link to, from a reader's perspective) into multiple sub-categories of separate categories or doesn't fit neatly into any, would that disturb the topic cluster and/or silo architecture?
Thanks.
 
Writer_Guy said:
Should they be written as Pages or Posts, or would it not matter in Google's eyes?
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Google doesn't know the difference. There is no real difference. It's just options that Wordpress offers us to stay organized internally. The correct way to do it is to use Posts for all that stuff, and Pages for About, Contact, Special Landing Page, Terms & Conditions, etc.

Writer_Guy said:
If as Posts, would the site structure be better as a physical silo (site.com/category/sub-category/post) or a mix with categories and subcategories in physical silos and posts in virtual silos (site.com/post).
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I'd recommend doing the latter: site.com/post/ because this gives you the freedom to change categories at will without having to deal with 301 redirects. Also it stops you from wasting time worrying about posts that go in multiple categories, etc. It's the superior way for many reasons, such as shorter, cleaner URLs, less risk of accidentally keyword stuffing the entire URL, etc.

Writer_Guy said:
would that disturb the topic cluster and/or silo architecture?
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It's not that critical. Silo stuff doesn't matter like it used to. The way we design sites now, it's nearly impossible to have clean silos. With topical relevancy, you won't disturb it, in my opinion. You can add to your topical relevancy but it's hard to reduce it. I wouldn't worry. I have sites where I interlink wherever I damn well please and they do just fine. Zero concern for silos and relevancy clusters.
 
Thanks for the warm welcome and your prompt help!

You had mentioned in my intro thread on tackling the least competitive keywords first.

I had intended to do just the opposite with cornerstone content (which would also be the category and sub-category pages) first, followed by writing posts on the least competitive keywords that would internally link to the above-mentioned pages, creating nice topic clusters. I think I should revisit my strategy.

With site.com/post/ format, one could publish blogs, daily news, product reviews etc. without necessarily linking them to any category pages or have them categorized in any navigation bars, right?

I hate to overthink on new things but I understand site structure and design are two elements that are better off getting right in the beginning.

Thanks again.
 
Writer_Guy said:
I had intended to do just the opposite with cornerstone content (which would also be the category and sub-category pages) first, followed by writing posts on the least competitive keywords that would internally link to the above-mentioned pages, creating nice topic clusters. I think I should revisit my strategy.
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You could do this. I do this on many sites, but I can afford the time and expense to knock some of that up front. If you feel like you can, then I see no problem. I like to do that for the reason you mentioned and more: because people expect to see it, because it can start aging, because I can start interlinking to it.

Writer_Guy said:
With site.com/post/ format, one could publish blogs, daily news, product reviews etc. without necessarily linking them to any category pages or have them categorized in any navigation bars, right?
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You have to have a category. You can create one that's "Uncategorized" or even several if you want to internally stay organized, and not display them on the site. That's not good though. That leads to "orphaned" content meaning that users and Google can't browse to the pages from on the site (but maybe through external links or the sitemap). This restricts the flow of page rank to them, but not necessarily out of them, which seems to be your goal? Either way, I think this is bad practice. If content isn't good enough to be on the site and found, then it shouldn't be published, in my opinion.
 
Ryuzaki said:
You have to have a category. You can create one that's "Uncategorized" or even several if you want to internally stay organized, and not display them on the site. That's not good though. That leads to "orphaned" content meaning that users and Google can't browse to the pages from on the site (but maybe through external links or the sitemap). This restricts the flow of page rank to them, but not necessarily out of them, which seems to be your goal? Either way, I think this is bad practice. If content isn't good enough to be on the site and found, then it shouldn't be published, in my opinion.
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This is how the site (a knowledge base on a specific machine) would be structured then:
  • Home
    • By Type
      • T1
      • T2
    • By Application
      • A1
      • A2
    • By Parts
      • P1
      • P2
    • Product Reviews
    • Daily News
All these in a physical silo. Am I reading you correctly?

I understood your helpful explanation of 'orphaned content'. But the above mentioned post about virtual silo site.com/post/ which you recommended to use for posts of each sub-category-wouldn't those be 'orphaned' too? Even if I am internally linking them to other pages, these posts cannot be found by users or Google from the home page.

I am either misinterpreting you or having a tough time visualizing my site's architecture. Sorry for asking help repeatedly.
 
@Writer_Guy, I'm not entirely clear on what you're asking in your post above. But think you should abide by the following general guideline:

Every page/post on your site should be able to be discovered by clicking through links on your site. Whether that's through the header navigation, footer navigation, sidebar, contextual links in the article, related posts at the bottom of articles, in the category pages whether that's /page/2/ or /page/20/ of the pagination... the point is that you should be able to start at any point, click around and find any other page, and be able to also return back to the original page. All pages should be discoverable by "crawling" the site, which is the main way Google discovers content on the internet and assigns it a value in the rankings.

Let's say you do have some types of content you don't want to be easily found by users because it's a distraction from the main goal of your site. You still don't want to hide it from Google.

So your main navigation at the top may be:

Logo (links to homepage) | By Type | By Application | By Parts​

and maybe each has a hover dropdown with some sub-pages.

But at the same time you want to post News articles, Product Reviews, Press Releases, etc. These are more for the benefit of Google and users that arrive through Google for those specific pages.

So maybe in the footer you list those categories in smaller font at the bottom:

News | Product Reviews | Press Releases​
​
I think that solves your problem. Google can find it, page rank can flow through it, and any user that really wants to find that stuff will find it. It's findable is the point.

There's nothing wrong with controlling the flow of user's attention. But if for whatever the reason the content shouldn't be found at all, I'd question what the point of even publishing it is. Is it really up to your standards or Google's standards or even users?
 
Ryuzaki said:
Every page/post on your site should be able to be discovered by clicking through links on your site. Whether that's through the header navigation, footer navigation, sidebar, contextual links in the article, related posts at the bottom of articles, in the category pages whether that's /page/2/ or /page/20/ of the pagination... the point is that you should be able to start at any point, click around and find any other page, and be able to also return back to the original page. All pages should be discoverable by "crawling" the site, which is the main way Google discovers content on the internet and assigns it a value in the rankings.
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I got you now. The highlighted portion in your response resolves my query. I'd want every content of mine to be discoverable, just wasn't sure of the navigational structure of Posts.

Thanks for all the help!
 
Issue 1. Upon looking at an ahrefs audit, I noticed all of our images have a dedicated attachment page as well as the actual image location.

Example: mysite.com/category/post-title/attachment/image-file-name/
When it should only be at: mysite.com/wp-content/uploads/attachment.png

This is on a site that hasn't had much love lately, but we're beginning to publish on it once again. I assume these dedicated pages for attachments isn't a SEO best practice + it looks like ass or could be considered thin content.

Per yoast, I can change this under the settings SEO > Search Appearance > Media > Redirect attachment url's to the attachment itself. Yet, I've seen other reports online about how it tanked their sites impressions or traffic (we have many, many images and attachment pages in the SERPs).

We're hoping to get into Mediavine in a few months and I wouldn't want to impede progress. Has anyone changed this setting from off - on and if so, did you have any issues? Or is there any "right way" to do this that I may have missed?

--

Issue 2. I also noticed that we have a "Non-canonical page in sitemap" error and I believe this is because I placed some posts into multiple categories without dictating the "canonical url" via the advance setting in yoast found at the bottom of each post. Yoast article here for reference.

Am I correct on this second issue?
 
Found another free theme is Kadence. Looks like something worthwhile. It might be useful to someone.

All in all, Astra theme, Scheme and Kadence will be enough for me to get started.

Let's go)
 
MWWWconquest said:
Yet, I've seen other reports online about how it tanked their sites impressions or traffic (we have many, many images and attachment pages in the SERPs).
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You absolutely want to get rid of these "attachment pages" by having them redirect to the actual image file as you described. Those pages don't provide meaningful traffic to you or to ad agencies or their customers. It's bad, it'll tank your RPMs, lose you advertisers, fill up your indexation with low quality crap, get you a Penguin penalty, and so forth. I can't emphasize how bad it is. It's among the most catastrophic things you can do to yourself.

If you want more anecdotes, look for stories where Yoast pushed an update that turned that option off for everyone (meaning everyone suddenly had those attachment pages again) and how many people's traffic tanked and how long it took to fix it.
 
Ryuzaki said:
You absolutely want to get rid of these "attachment pages" by having them redirect to the actual image file as you described.
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@Ryuzaki I really appreciate the insight. I'll be doing this via the yoast feature.

Am I on the right track with the "Non-canonical page in sitemap" error mentioned?
 
MWWWconquest said:
Issue 2. I also noticed that we have a "Non-canonical page in sitemap" error and I believe this is because I placed some posts into multiple categories without dictating the "canonical url" via the advance setting in yoast found at the bottom of each post.
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No clue. I have multiple sites where each post goes into multiple categories and I never have a canonical issue, even where the URL is like mysite.com/parent-category/sub-category/post-slug/.

Yoast does a great job of applying the self-canonical to each page and putting that page in the sitemap. I don't know how your canonicals got out of whack unless you took a page that should have been the canonical (the one in the sitemap) and manually added a different canonical URL to it in the Yoast settings. I don't see any good reason to be doing this. Any time I see it as needed, I think a 301 redirect is a better choice. Canonicals, in my opinion, are best left for site-to-site "credit passing" like with syndication, rather than internal credit passing on a single site.
 
Ryuzaki said:
Yoast does a great job of applying the self-canonical to each page and putting that page in the sitemap. I don't know how your canonicals got out of whack unless you took a page that should have been the canonical (the one in the sitemap) and manually added a different canonical URL to it in the Yoast settings.
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I surely didn't do that, but I'll have to dig in further. One thing at a time I suppose. Thanks again!
 
Hi everyone,

I've been building a niche site since early September and am really enjoying the progress of learning and creating. Earned my first dollar (or 42!) yesterday. BuSo has been very helpful.

I've been thinking about whether I should cloak/redirect my affiliate links (e.g. mysite.com/go/brand instead of an affiliate network link). What's the general recommendation?
 
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segerf said:
Hi everyone,

I've been building a niche site since early September and am really enjoying the progress of learning and creating. Earned my first dollar (or 42!) yesterday. BuSo has been very helpful.

I've been thinking about whether I should cloak/redirect my affiliate links (e.g. mysite.com/go/brand instead of an affiliate network link). What's the general recommendation?
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Depends.

There's several reasons for why you might want to cloak.

Using a link manager like Pretty Links can be smart if you link to the same products across a lot of different posts, because then you just need to change it in one place if you get a 404 or if you switch to another network.

You might also want to cloak for tracking purposes if you're using some kind of third party analytics to get extra info in Google Analytics for example.

The last reason might be to hide the affiliate links. I think this is not a good idea, because it's a waste of time and it doesn't affect click through rates and Google won't be fooled by it.

I would cloak if it makes your job easier, not to hide links.
 
The Discussion Settings-Default Post Settings in Wordpress has a checklist:
  • Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the post
  • Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new posts
  • Allow people to submit comments on new posts
I don't want comments on my blog so I've unchecked the last option. As I understand, allowing the first two may have some SEO benefit, but have their own cons. Are they worth checking them on?

Thanks.
 
Writer_Guy said:
As I understand, allowing the first two may have some SEO benefit, but have their own cons. Are they worth checking them on?
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You do not want trackbacks to display on your own site (the 2nd bullet). The 1st bullet could net you some links. Most of the time the webmaster has to approve them just like they approve comments. If they're on auto-approve they're probably spammed to death. I don't do anything with trackbacks either way. One less thing to think about that's not likely to get you any links that are worth much at all.
 
I’m contemplating going through a ton of profile creation websites (50+) with high DA and dropping a backlink to my website. Is this a good idea? And if it is, should I only send links from websites that cover the same topic?

I.E. is it bad to send a link from IMDb.com to a cooking website?
 
Titan243 said:
I’m contemplating going through a ton of profile creation websites (50+) with high DA and dropping a backlink to my website. Is this a good idea? And if it is, should I only send links from websites that cover the same topic?

I.E. is it bad to send a link from IMDb.com to a cooking website?
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These random profile links won't add much value. Contextual links (from similar niche) are much more powerful.
 
I noticed the plugin I'm using to serve up the proper size image on mobile doesn't apply to a "featured image" and it's slowing down the page load. If I omit the featured image and insert it at the top of the page, it looks the same to a user, but it loads a lot faster.

Are there any negatives to skipping the featured image photo?
 
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