URL structure quietly determines whether your entire website succeeds or fails. Short, clean URL structures only matter because they influence crawl depth, internal linking, and how authority flows through your site. Hub pages always outrank their child pages because hubs sit closer to the homepage, get crawled more often, and accumulate far more internal links and backlinks. A page becomes a hub not because of its URL, but because the architecture, internal links, and backlinks all signal its importance. Clusters, silos, hubs + spokes, and entity attribute pairs are all similar concepts: grouping related pages under a single authoritative topic hub. Top-level hub pages must target broad, high-value keywords because every child page exists to reinforce the hub. Child pages only rank well when they live inside a strong topical cluster built around a powerful hub page. Top-level URLs rank better because they sit higher in the hierarchy and get discovered and recrawled more frequently. Hub pages attract dramatically more internal links and backlinks than any individual child page, amplifying their ranking power. Broad hub pages always rank for hundreds or thousands of keywords, while child pages can only rank for narrow intent queries. You must build both a broad hub page and many attribute-level child pages to maximize keyword coverage and dominate a full topic. Planning site architecture from the start guarantees the strongest results because you can build clean clusters without messy redirects. Changing URL structures on existing sites requires 301s and updating internal links, which introduces risk but can dramatically improve rankings when executed correctly. Structural URL layouts organize content by type, but they waste top-level pages that could be used for powerful ranking hubs. Structural hubs like “/tools” or “/generators” cannot rank for broad queries because search intent favors thematic, comparison, or solution-focused pages. If a top-level structural page cannot rank, every child page under it becomes weaker because the parent passes no authority downstream.

Hi Jonathan, I'm in the process of setting it up, but when I follow your instructions in the video links, I get this screen on the right saying I need to retrieve my license key. I've requested it twice already, but I haven't received a key. What can I do about this? Do you have a solution?

Hi all! I'm working on the topical map for my e-commerce site, which sells laptops (new/used, gaming etcc), mobile phones, gaming accessories(gaming mouse,keyboards,mouse pads,gaming chairs,consules etcc and laptop accessories. My Dilemma: Should I go with one central entity (e.g., "Tech Products") and cover everything under that, or create multiple central entities for each product line (e.g., Laptops, Gaming Gear, Phones)?

Hi everybody, I am currently doing my first client project (onpage optimization) and need to add 800 alt texts. Its insanely time consuming , but I imagine there has to be an AI stack that works very well for this case? I've looked into a couple WP plugins but they all seem quite pricey. Any ideas?

A practical guide to planning site architecture, building money pages, and creating a structure that ranks and converts. 1. Start With Your Homepage Every crawler starts on your homepage. It is always the most important page on your site. When your homepage gets links from other websites, that link equity flows to the pages it links to. So your homepage becomes the engine that powers all rankings across your site. If you want a page to rank, make sure it is linked directly from your homepage or from other strong top level pages. The closer a page is to your homepage, the better its chance of ranking. --- 2. Study Competitors To See What Works Before mapping anything, look closely at the top ranking websites in your niche. They have already figured out which landing pages bring in traffic and conversions. Most high ranking sites: - Link heavily from the homepage to their money pages - Use keyword focused landing pages like AI video editor or text to video - Use navigation menus to highlight their top pages - Include secondary pages in the footer, like templates or additional tools You are looking for patterns. Generator pages, maker pages, tools, templates, solutions, effects, and other repeatable page types. --- 3. Understand Link Juice and PageRank Sites with large numbers of referring domains usually dominate. Many of those links point straight to the homepage. This makes the homepage the most powerful page and your biggest source of link equity. Your job is to direct that link equity to the pages you want to rank. --- 4. Map Out Your Main Pages Start with your homepage, then create categories of landing pages. If you are building an AI video tool site, the categories might look like: - Generators - Tools - Solutions - Templates - Effects Under each category, add specific landing pages you plan to build. These are your high converting, bottom of funnel money pages. --- 5. Use GlooMaps To Visualize It