Read your site map and sections

Structure shows the shape of your site: every page, what links to it, and the parts of the site it sits in. The Site map is for finding what is stranded, the Posts tab for finding any one post, and the Sections tab for seeing which parts of the site hang together.

6 steps·Updated 20 October 2026

Steps

1. Open Structure → Site map

   Open Structure in the sidebar. It opens on the Site map tab: every page from your last scan, grouped by the part of the site it lives in. Across the top, four figures: Posts, Links in posts, Clicks from home (the average, menus included, shown when Silotree can work it out) and Dead ends, posts that link to nothing else on your site.

   Choose Tree, Table or Map. The tree lists each page with a tag where something is wrong (unlinked, thin links for one or two links in from posts, or dead end) and its links in and out. The table adds the section, topic, clicks from home and word count of each page. The map draws pages as dots and the links between them as lines.

2. Filter the map and switch how it groups

   Under Show, pick All pages, Unlinked posts (no other post links to them from its text), Dead ends, or Linked mostly from menus: pages whose links in come mostly from your menus, footer and sidebar rather than from your writing.

   In the tree, By section groups pages by where they sit in your addresses, and By topic groups them by what they are about. The two can disagree: a topic marked Spans 3 sections is one subject spread across three parts of your site. A section is read from the address, so /recipes/sourdough-starter/ sits in Recipes whatever it is about; a topic is read from the text, see topics. Collapse all and Expand all fold the groups.

3. Select a page to see where its links come from

   Click any page. A panel opens with its links in and out, clicks from home and word count, then how its links in break down: from your writing, from menus, footer and sidebar, and from a related-posts block. Only links in your posts count as links in. Below that are its Search Console figures for the last 28 days, if you have connected it, and the mix of words other posts use to link to it. Press Open the full page to see every link in and out and set its target keywords.

4. Press Rebuild sections if the groups look out of date

   Every scan works out your sections again, so you rarely need this. Rebuild sections, at the top of the Site map, redoes it from the pages Silotree already has, without a scan, and says what changed: No change, the sections are already right., or how many pages moved and how many empty sections were removed. Each section’s main guide is worked out again with it. The page then reloads. It changes how Silotree groups your pages, nothing in WordPress. It works from the addresses your last scan read, so a post you have published or moved since shows up after the next scan.

5. Find any post on the Posts tab

   The Posts tab lists every post from the last scan, 50 to a page, with its links in, links out, clicks from home and how many target keywords it has. Search by title or address, and sort by any column; it starts with the fewest links in, and marks unlinked posts. Click a post to open its own page, with every post that links to it, and set its target keywords there. On a site in more than one language, a line at the top names the languages found, see multilingual sites.

6. Read the Sections tab, least focused first

   The Sections tab lists the parts of your site read from your addresses, such as /guides/ or /reviews/, least focused first. A folder becomes a section once it holds at least three pages; pages at the top level, or in a folder with fewer, sit in Root. Each section shows its pages, its Focus (how many of the links in its posts stay inside it), Both ways (links inside it answered by a link back), where its other links go, and its Main guide: the page at the section’s own address, such as /guides/ itself, when your site has one.

   The figures above count Links wander off (sections where under half the links stay inside), No main guide (sections of three or more pages with no page at their address) and Section focus for the whole site. A link that leaves a section is not wrong in itself: a recipe linking to the technique it uses crosses a boundary for a good reason. It is worth a look when most of a section’s links leave.

What you should see

If it doesn’t work

“Showing the first 3,000 of …”

The Site map holds 3,000 pages at most, and says so on a larger site. The map view draws up to 600 of them, the ones with the most links in from your writing, and the 4,000 links between them, and says when it shows fewer. The Posts tab lists every post, whatever the size of the site.

Clicks from home is missing

Silotree could not work out how far pages are from your home page on the last scan, so the figure and the column are left out rather than shown as zero. They come back once a scan reaches your home page.

A section is called Root

Root holds the pages that are not in a folder of three or more, such as /about/ or posts whose address has no folder. That is normal on a site whose posts sit at the top level.

Questions