Q: When planning a cluster, copy what competitors cover or follow raw search demand?

Short answer: use competitor coverage to find the floor (the must-cover sub-topics), then use search demand and your own expertise to go past it. Copying alone caps you at parity.

A coverage comparison against the top 3 ranking sites shows the table-stakes sub-topics — miss those and you can't compete. But if you only match them, you've built a page that's equal, not better, and equal rarely outranks an established page.

In practice: list every sub-topic the top competitors cover (that's your minimum), then add the facets they all missed — questions from forums, 'people also ask,' your own first-hand experience. The winning cluster covers the consensus completely AND brings something none of the competitors have. Match the floor, then build a story above it. Parity gets you in; differentiation gets you ranked.

Got a question? Send it in.

Microsoft планирует вставлять рекламу в игры

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Q: How do I audit a topic cluster I already published to find the gaps?

Short answer: pull every URL in the cluster into one sheet and grade each on three things — entity coverage, internal links, and overlap. Work the checklist top to bottom:

— List all cluster URLs plus their target query and primary entity (the thing the page is about)
— Run each page through an entity tool (Google NLP demo, InLinks) and flag entities competitors cover that you don't
— Count internal links pointing IN to each page; anything under 3 is under-supported
— Spot two pages targeting the same intent — that's cannibalization, merge or differentiate
— Mark any subtopic with zero page at all — that's your next brief

In practice: the fastest wins are usually the under-linked pages, not new content. Fix links first, then write to fill the empty cells.

Got a cluster you're unsure about? Send it in.

Q: I built a complete cluster a year ago and rankings are slipping. I haven't touched it. Is that the problem?

Short answer: very likely — topical authority isn't a one-time build, and a frozen cluster decays as competitors expand and the topic itself moves.

New subtopics emerge, search intent shifts, and your once-complete coverage becomes partial without you changing a word. Meanwhile competitors keep adding to theirs.

In practice:
— Quarterly, check whether new subtopics or questions have appeared in your topic (People Also Ask and competitor new pages are good signals).
— Add or update cluster pages to cover them, and link them in.
— Refresh the pillar to reference the new pages.

Think of a cluster as a living map, not a finished monument. The sites that hold authority are the ones still feeding the topic two years later, not the ones that hit "complete" and walked away.

Got a content-decay question? Send it in.

Q: I'm building my first pillar page from scratch — what's the actual step order?

Short answer: research the entity set first, structure second, write last. Most people write first and bolt structure on after, which is why pillars feel thin.

— Define the one broad topic the pillar owns (e.g. "email deliverability"), not a keyword
— Scrape the top 10 results and extract every subheading — that's your subtopic universe
— Group those into 6-12 sections; each section is a future cluster page
— Draft the pillar to give a complete overview of each section in 2-4 paragraphs
— Link OUT from each section to its (planned) cluster page, even before those exist as TODOs
— Add a short FAQ block answering the literal questions from People Also Ask

In practice: a pillar's job is breadth and routing, not depth. Save the deep dives for the cluster pages it links to.

Got a topic in mind? Send it in.

Q: I keep publishing new articles but never go back to link to them from older posts. Does that slow them down?

Short answer: yes — new pages launched without inbound internal links start near-orphaned, crawl slowly, and take far longer to rank than they should.

A fresh page with links only pointing out and nothing pointing in has no internal authority and no clear path for crawlers to reach it. You're publishing into a corner.

In practice: make "link-in" part of your publish checklist, not an afterthought.
— When you publish a new cluster page, immediately add 3-5 contextual links to it from existing related pages and the pillar.
— Keep a simple list of which older pages mention the new page's subtopic — those are your link sources.

The habit that compounds: new content earns its place by being wired into the existing cluster on day one, not whenever you remember. Five minutes at publish saves months of waiting.

Got a publishing-workflow question? Send it in.

На Anthropic, OpenAI, Google и SpaceXAI подали в суд из-за ИИ

В Калифорнии против ИИ-компаний подали антимонопольный иск: регулятору показалось подозрительным, что игроки синхронно призывают ограничить развитие нейросетей ради безопасности. Смысл спора в том, что инвестиции в ИИ уже обгоняют реальный прогресс, а бизнесу выгодны правила, которые защитят капитал. Вывод: быстрых прорывов ждать не стоит, лучше выжимать максимум из текущих инструментов.

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Google ads начал показывать расходы конкурентов

Google Ads запустил Peer Spending — инструмент, который сравнивает расходы аккаунта с рекламодателями из той же ниши без раскрытия чужих данных. Он показывает, тратите вы больше, меньше или примерно на уровне конкурентов на уровне кампаний и групп объявлений. Для арбитража это скорее ориентир по бенчмаркам, чем инструмент прямого усиления залива.

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Q: What's a repeatable checklist for doing an internal-linking pass on a new article?

Short answer: before you hit publish, run these six checks every time — it takes ten minutes and beats a monthly link cleanup.

— Add 2-4 links OUT to your most relevant existing pages, using descriptive anchor text (not "click here")
— Add at least 3 links IN from older pages that mention this new topic — search site:yourdomain.com "phrase" to find them
— Link to your pillar page once, high in the body
— Vary anchors: don't use the exact same phrase five times across the site
— Check no link points to a redirected or 404 URL
— Make sure the new page isn't an orphan — it needs at least one link from navigation or a hub

In practice: the inbound links matter more than the outbound ones for ranking the new page.

Question about anchors? Send it in.

Q: My cluster is built but stuck on page 2. Chase backlinks or fix on-page first?

Short answer: fix on-page and internal linking first — backlinks rarely rescue a page that's under-covering its topic or poorly linked internally.

Page-2 usually means you're relevant but not yet the best answer. Links can push a strong page over the line, but they won't fix missing sub-topics, weak entity coverage, or a page that no internal links point to. Spending on links first often wastes equity on a page that can't hold the position.

In practice: before any outreach, confirm the page covers every sub-question, defines its key entities, and receives at least 3-5 contextual internal links from related cluster posts. Re-check rankings after two weeks. If it climbs to the top of page 2 on internal signals alone, THEN a few quality links are what tip it onto page 1.

Got a question? Send it in.

Минфин РФ планирует выпустить собственный стейблкоин

Власти РФ обсуждают запуск рублёвого стейблкоина: сейчас решают, как его обеспечить, какие операции разрешить и будет ли на него спрос. Основной кейс — международные переводы, а не использование физлицами. Если проект доведут до запуска, он может стать частью новой криптоинфраструктуры и альтернативой токенам, привязанным к дружественным валютам.

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