Matan · SEO · Structure

Crawl depth

Important URLs should sit close to the root (few path segments / clicks).

Pass condition in our engine: The URL path has 3 or fewer segments.

1. Problem description

Depth measured from path segments is a proxy for click depth. /a/b/c/d/e/article is harder to discover and often indicates a bloated taxonomy. Hub pages and flattening beat endless folders.

2. Most common causes

  • Mirroring a deep file share in the URL.
  • Adding a language and a brand and a year and a category to every post.
  • No hub pages, so everything lives five folders down.

3. How to fix it

  1. Keep key URLs within three path segments where you can.
  2. Link deep pages from shallower hubs.
  3. Avoid repeating dates in the path unless you have a news architecture that needs them.

Test this check

We fetch only this URL (plus robots.txt / llms.txt at the domain root when the check needs them). We do not crawl the rest of the site like a full report.

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