The more clicks it takes, the less likely crawlers and users will like you
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2024 8:08 am
Crawl depth is the number of clicks required to reach a given page starting from the home page.
Having important pages on your website more than 3 clicks away from your homepage is bad for SEO and for your users.
Reorganize your internal linking architecture so that important content can be reached in as few clicks as possible.
SEO Internal Linking - Pages with a single incoming internal link
The more inbound internal links a page has, the more likely it is that both users and search engine bots will reach it.
Also, remember the distribution of page authority, which increases its value in the eyes of search engines if it receives links from other pages on your website with high authority.
Insert more inbound links on pages with important content, but make sure that the internal linking between them is relevant.
Access the internal linking report
with the Site Authoring tool
Try it for free →
ADS illustration
SEO Internal Linking - Technical Expert Comments
Internal SEO Linking - Fernando Macià
@fernandomacia
Internal linking is one of the aspects that most affects the positioning of a given content.
For me, there are three principles that should guide how a given content should be placed in the information architecture of a website:
Pages with the highest potential for organic traffic should be fewer clicks away from the home page.
Pages with the highest potential for organic traffic should be linked to, proportionally, much more than others.
The anchor text of the links that point to these pages must respond to the most frequent keyword or search intention.
However, although a depth of no more than three clicks from the home page is desirable for important content, this is not possible for all websites.
For example, housing search websites have very long-tail traffic.
Logically, the demand for apartments in larger cities is greater than that for terraced houses, for example, in small towns.
That is why we must, in some way, “force” the logical information architecture to save clicks on the most important pages.
For example, by linking directly to “Apartments in Madrid” from the home page without having to first email germany go through the province, type of property, etc.
That is, saving clicks and placing that important content at a higher level of depth.
In e-commerce websites, this also entails constant updating of interlinking to respond to:
Seasonality of demand: products with the greatest sales potential at each time of year should be linked as a priority over those with the least.
Folksonomies: Products or services should be able to be grouped distinctly and flexibly to accommodate casual searches like “father’s day gifts” or “romantic restaurant” from dedicated areas of the menu.
On media websites, news stories are placed in greater depth levels the longer they are published.
Sections such as “Most commented”, “Most voted”, “Most viewed”, etc. make it easier for us to place news that, although no longer current, still have great traffic potential, linked with a click from the home page and from a large number of internal pages, prolonging their positioning.
Having important pages on your website more than 3 clicks away from your homepage is bad for SEO and for your users.
Reorganize your internal linking architecture so that important content can be reached in as few clicks as possible.
SEO Internal Linking - Pages with a single incoming internal link
The more inbound internal links a page has, the more likely it is that both users and search engine bots will reach it.
Also, remember the distribution of page authority, which increases its value in the eyes of search engines if it receives links from other pages on your website with high authority.
Insert more inbound links on pages with important content, but make sure that the internal linking between them is relevant.
Access the internal linking report
with the Site Authoring tool
Try it for free →
ADS illustration
SEO Internal Linking - Technical Expert Comments
Internal SEO Linking - Fernando Macià
@fernandomacia
Internal linking is one of the aspects that most affects the positioning of a given content.
For me, there are three principles that should guide how a given content should be placed in the information architecture of a website:
Pages with the highest potential for organic traffic should be fewer clicks away from the home page.
Pages with the highest potential for organic traffic should be linked to, proportionally, much more than others.
The anchor text of the links that point to these pages must respond to the most frequent keyword or search intention.
However, although a depth of no more than three clicks from the home page is desirable for important content, this is not possible for all websites.
For example, housing search websites have very long-tail traffic.
Logically, the demand for apartments in larger cities is greater than that for terraced houses, for example, in small towns.
That is why we must, in some way, “force” the logical information architecture to save clicks on the most important pages.
For example, by linking directly to “Apartments in Madrid” from the home page without having to first email germany go through the province, type of property, etc.
That is, saving clicks and placing that important content at a higher level of depth.
In e-commerce websites, this also entails constant updating of interlinking to respond to:
Seasonality of demand: products with the greatest sales potential at each time of year should be linked as a priority over those with the least.
Folksonomies: Products or services should be able to be grouped distinctly and flexibly to accommodate casual searches like “father’s day gifts” or “romantic restaurant” from dedicated areas of the menu.
On media websites, news stories are placed in greater depth levels the longer they are published.
Sections such as “Most commented”, “Most voted”, “Most viewed”, etc. make it easier for us to place news that, although no longer current, still have great traffic potential, linked with a click from the home page and from a large number of internal pages, prolonging their positioning.