Crawl Depth
The number of clicks required to reach a page from the homepage, affecting how search engines discover and index content.
Definition
Crawl depth refers to how many links a search engine crawler must follow from the homepage to reach a specific page. Pages deeper than 3-4 clicks often receive less crawling frequency and ranking weight.
Optimizing crawl depth through internal linking and site architecture improvements helps ensure important pages are discovered and indexed efficiently by search engines.
Why It Matters
Pages with shallow crawl depth typically receive more crawling attention and link equity, leading to better indexing and ranking potential. Deep pages may be overlooked entirely.
Improving crawl depth distribution helps search engines understand content hierarchy and importance, ensuring valuable pages receive appropriate ranking consideration and organic visibility.
Examples in Practice
An e-commerce site restructuring navigation to move best-selling products from 5-click depth to 2-click depth for better rankings.
A news website implementing topic hubs to reduce article crawl depth from 4+ clicks to 2-3 clicks from the homepage.
A corporate website adding contextual internal links to reduce service page depth and improve organic visibility for commercial queries.