Roles
An article’s role in a cluster comes from its links in, compared with the other articles in the cluster.
| Role | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pillar | The cluster’s main article — the best-linked one (two in clusters of 20+), or the one you chose. |
| Support | An ordinary, reasonably linked article. |
| Light | At most one link from other articles, in the bottom 35% of the cluster. |
| Orphan | No links from other articles. |
An article can have different roles in different clusters. Where ClusterIQ shows one role for the whole site — Article Inspector without a cluster filter, Text Match, the Report — it is the article’s best role in its clusters.
Health (0–100)
| Part | Weight |
|---|---|
| Article quality (overall scores) | 30% |
| No orphans | 25% |
| Links between the cluster’s articles | 20% |
| Links spread evenly | 15% |
| Topic breadth | 10% |
70 and above is Good; 50–69 is Fair and needs attention; under 50 is Weak. The site’s health on the Dashboard, in Cluster Inspector and in the Report is weighted by articles: a 40-article cluster counts eight times as much as a 5-article one.
Archetypes — the cluster’s shape
Checked in this order:
- Emerging — fewer than 6 articles: still taking shape.
- Balanced Mesh — links spread evenly: a solid structure.
- Authority Pyramid — one clear pillar with supporting articles: the ideal cluster shape.
- Over-Centralized Hub — one article carries too much of the link weight.
- Weak Structure — few links between the articles.
- Fragmented — more than a quarter of the articles are orphans.
- Developed — large, strong articles, few orphans.
- Mixed — analysed, but no single pattern stands out. Choosing a pillar and linking the cluster to it is a good first step.
- Product Range — WooCommerce product categories are always given this shape.
Unclassified means the cluster hasn’t been computed yet — click Scan, or Recalculate clusters under Settings → Advanced. The thresholds can be tuned under Settings → Advanced → Cluster Thresholds.
In plain words: see the guide Measuring cluster health.