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Pillar page and topic cluster

Somebody read that pillar pages work, so a writer spent three weeks on four thousand words covering everything about one subject. It ranks for nothing, because a pillar is a linking structure and nobody built the links.

Part 1

The pillar is the hub, the cluster does the work

The structure is a broad page linked to and from several specific pages, each answering one question properly. The specific pages are what people search for. The pillar exists to connect them and to be the page you point at when somebody asks what you cover.

Do this: Count the pages linking to your pillar. If the answer is under five, you have a long page rather than a pillar.
Part 2

Length is not the point and it never was

The word count is a symptom of covering a broad subject, not the mechanism. A three thousand word page that answers nothing specific loses to a six hundred word page that answers one thing exactly.

Do this: Delete any section of your pillar that exists to reach a word count. It is costing you, not helping.
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Part 3

Links have to run both ways

Pillar to cluster tells search engines what the pillar covers. Cluster back to pillar tells them the specific pages belong to a subject you own. One direction only is half a structure and it behaves like one.

Do this: Check both directions today. The missing one is almost always cluster back to pillar.
Part 4

When it is wrong for you

If you can only support two pages on a subject, you do not have a cluster, and building a pillar for them is a quarter spent on scaffolding with nothing to hold. Write the two best pages instead and link them to each other.

Do this: Be honest about how many pages you will really publish on the subject. Under four, skip the structure entirely.

This is teaching material and our own reading of standard editorial practice, not advice for your specific business. Check anything important with your own specialist before you act on it.

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