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Glossary Term

Cornerstone Content.

Learn what Cornerstone Content means in modern search and SEO.

Part of speechnounOriginOld English: corn (angle, corner) + Old English: stān (stone) — i.e. the foundational stone of a building

The most important, comprehensive content on a website that best represents what the business does and targets primary keywords.

Cornerstone content (also called pillar content or evergreen content) represents the most important articles or pages on a website—the content that best explains what you do, serves as the entry point for new visitors, and targets your most valuable keywords. It is typically comprehensive, regularly updated, and receives the most internal links from other pages on the site.

Characteristics of Cornerstone Content

Cornerstone content is: comprehensive (covering a topic thoroughly enough to be the definitive resource); evergreen (remaining relevant over time with periodic updates); internally linked to by many other pages on the site; optimised for high-value, competitive keywords; and typically longer and more detailed than supporting content. There should be relatively few cornerstone pages—perhaps 5–15 for most sites—with each representing a core topic the business wants to own.

Building Around Cornerstone Content

Supporting blog posts, case studies, and cluster pages should link internally to relevant cornerstone content. This link structure ensures cornerstone pages accumulate internal link equity and authority, improving their ranking potential for competitive terms. Yoast SEO popularised the term 'cornerstone content' and has tools to help structure this internal link hierarchy.

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