What Is Crawl Depth? How Many Clicks Is Too Deep?

Crawl depth is the number of clicks it takes to reach a page from the homepage by following links. Pages linked directly from the homepage may be crawled more often, but Google says that does not make them rank higher.

Three clicks is a common rule of thumb, not a Google rule. Below: how to measure depth, when it matters and how to fix it. Check a page’s status with the Google Index Checker.

What Is Crawl Depth?

Crawl depth indicates how many clicks it takes for a search engine to reach a specific page from a website’s homepage. Pages just one click away are considered to have a crawl depth of 1, while those requiring multiple clicks have a higher crawl depth. This concept is crucial for search engine optimization (SEO) because it affects how search engines discover and index content. Pages linked directly from the home page may be seen as more important and crawled more often, though Google says that does not mean they rank higher.

Conversely, pages buried deep within a site’s structure may be overlooked, reducing their chances of ranking well. It is advisable to design a website with a clear, logical hierarchy to improve crawl depth, ensuring critical pages are easily accessible within a few clicks from the homepage.

What is Crawl Prioritization?

Crawl prioritization is the process by which search engines determine the order in which they visit and index web pages. Google cannot crawl every URL it knows about, so it weighs factors such as:

• Page Popularity: URLs that are more popular on the internet tend to be crawled more often.
• Content Freshness: Recently updated or newly published pages may be prioritized to ensure current search results.
• Site size and quality: Google says crawl demand varies with a site’s size, update frequency, page quality and relevance compared with other sites.

Website owners must understand crawl prioritization to ensure important content is discovered and indexed promptly.

Relations Between Crawl Depth and Crawl Budget

Crawl depth and budget are closely related factors affecting how search engines explore and index websites. Crawl depth refers to how many clicks it takes to reach a page from the homepage. The deeper a page is, the harder it is for search engines to find it quickly. The crawl budget is the number of pages search engines crawl on a site within a specific time frame.

Google says crawl budget only needs active management on very large sites (1 million+ pages, or 10,000+ pages changing daily). On most sites a deep page is a discovery problem, not a budget problem: if few links lead to it, Google may find it late.

Regularly updating sitemaps and removing unnecessary redirects can further improve efficiency.

How Exactly Does Google Index A Website?

Google indexes websites systematically by crawling, rendering, and storing web pages in its vast database.

Crawling: Google employs automated programs like Googlebot to discover new and updated web pages. These bots navigate the web by following links from already known pages to new ones, effectively mapping the interconnected content across the internet. Web admins can facilitate this process by ensuring their site’s pages are well-linked and submitting sitemaps through Google Search Console.

Rendering: Once a page is discovered, Googlebot retrieves its content and processes the code to understand its structure and layout. This rendering phase allows Google to comprehend dynamic content, including JavaScript elements, ensuring the page is indexed as users experience it in their browsers.

Indexing: After rendering, the page’s content is analyzed for relevance and quality.

It’s important to note that not all crawled pages are indexed. Pages may be excluded from the index due to low-quality content, duplication, or restrictions set by webmasters through robots.txt files or meta tags. To enhance the likelihood of indexing, website owners should focus on creating valuable, original content and maintaining a clear, accessible site structure.

For webmasters seeking expedited indexing of new or updated pages, Google offers tools like the URL Inspection feature in Google Search Console. By submitting a request through this tool, site owners can prompt Google to recrawl and reassess specific pages, facilitating quicker inclusion in the search index.

Check indexing: use the Google Index Checker to see whether a deep page is in Google’s index yet.

How Often Does Google Crawl My Site?

Google’s crawling frequency varies based on website popularity, update frequency, and technical performance. Google says that if a site has important content that changes often, it crawls that site often, regardless of the site’s size.

Update a page when it genuinely changes. Google says there is no extra value in trivial edits or bumping the page date to look fresh. Ensuring fast load times and minimizing server errors also positively influence crawl rates, as Googlebot allocates more resources to efficiently performing sites.

Utilize tools like Google Search Console to monitor and influence Google’s crawling activity. Remember, while you can encourage more frequent crawling through these practices, Google’s algorithms ultimately determine the exact crawl schedule.

Importance of Crawl Depth in SEO

Below are the key reasons why crawl depth matters in SEO:

Efficient Use of Crawl Budget

Search engines allocate a crawl budget to each website, which limits the number of pages they can crawl within a given timeframe. Keeping important pages shallow and well linked makes them easier to find and recrawl, though it does not by itself improve rankings.

Improved Indexing of Content

Pages buried in a website’s structure are less likely to be crawled and indexed frequently. If search engines struggle to reach certain pages due to excessive depth, those pages may not appear in search results or take longer to be indexed. Ensuring valuable content is accessible within a few clicks from the homepage increases the chances of being indexed quickly.

Enhanced User Experience

Crawl depth is necessary for search engines and users. A website that requires excessive clicks to access content can frustrate visitors, leading to a higher bounce rate. Search engines also consider user engagement metrics, so a better user experience can indirectly boost search rankings.

Prioritization of Important Pages

Google says pages linked directly from the home page may be seen as more important and crawled more often, but that does not mean they rank higher. If an essential page, such as a product category or service offering, is buried deep within the site, it may not receive as much attention from search engines.

Optimized Internal Linking Structure

A well-planned internal linking structure plays a crucial role in managing crawl depth. Internal links act as pathways for search engine crawlers, guiding them to different pages on the site. If internal linking is poor or inefficient, search engines may struggle to find and index certain pages.

Faster Page Discovery

When new content is added to a site, having a shallow crawl depth allows search engines to discover and index it more quickly. If new pages are placed too deep within the site’s hierarchy, it takes longer for search engines to find them.

Reduced Risk of Orphan Pages

Orphan pages are web pages with no internal links, making them difficult for search engines to discover. These pages often remain unindexed and fail to drive any organic traffic. Managing crawl depth effectively and ensuring that every page is linked appropriately minimizes the risk of orphan pages.

How To Make Your Site More Crawl-Friendly?

Below are some practical ways to make your site more crawl-friendly, along with steps to implement them.

Keep Your Sitemap Updated

A well-maintained sitemap is essential in helping search engines discover and index your web pages efficiently. It acts as a roadmap for search engine crawlers, guiding them to the most important pages on your site. Some valuable pages may be overlooked without an updated sitemap, reducing your site’s visibility in search results.

Google reads sitemaps to discover URLs, but says submitting one is only a hint and does not guarantee crawling. It uses lastmod only if it is consistently accurate, and ignores priority and changefreq.

How to Keep Your Sitemap Updated

1. Generate an XML Sitemap:
   • Use online tools or plugins (such as Yoast SEO for WordPress) to create an XML sitemap.
   • Ensure it includes all important URLs, excluding low-value pages like duplicate content or archive pages.
2. Update Your Sitemap Regularly:
   • Set up automatic sitemap updates whenever new content is added.
   • Manually update your sitemap if necessary, especially after site restructuring.
3. Submit the Sitemap to Google:
   • Upload the sitemap to Google Search Console under the “Sitemaps” section.
   • Check for errors or warnings and fix any issues detected.
4. Use the “lastmod” Tag:
   • Include the <lastmod> tag in your XML sitemap to indicate the latest modification date of each page.
   • Google uses it only if it is consistently and verifiably accurate, so update it only after significant changes.
5. Monitor Sitemap Indexing Status:
   • Regularly check Google Search Console reports to ensure all key pages are indexed.
   • Remove any broken or redirected links from the sitemap to maintain efficiency.

Improve Your Internal Linking Structure

An effective internal linking structure is key to making your site more crawl-friendly. It ensures search engine crawlers can easily navigate and discover the most valuable pages on your site. Important content might get overlooked without a well-organized internal linking setup, reducing its visibility and ranking potential.

Google advises that every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site, so use plain links (a elements with an href) that crawlers can follow.

How to Improve Your Internal Linking Structure

1. Analyze Existing Links:
   • Crawl your site and list pages with few or no internal links pointing to them.
   • Focus on boosting internal links for high-priority pages that need more visibility.
2. Link Popular Content to Target Pages:
   • Identify your most visited content and create links to other important pages.
   • This helps crawlers find and prioritize pages that may be buried deeper within your site.
3. Use Categories and Tags:
   • Organize your content into relevant categories and tags if your CMS allows it.
   • This guides crawlers and users in navigating your site more easily and discovering related content.

Find dead ends: the Broken Link Checker lists internal links that return errors so you can fix or redirect them.

Repair Broken Links

Broken links can severely impact your website’s crawl efficiency. Broken internal links send visitors and crawlers to dead ends. Google says 4xx pages do not waste crawl budget, but fixing them keeps link paths intact for users.

Repairing broken links ensures search engines can easily crawl and index your content. When bots encounter functioning links, they can more efficiently navigate your website and index new and updated pages, helping maintain your site’s visibility in search results.

How to Repair Broken Links

1. Regularly Monitor Your Site for Broken Links:
   • Use tools like Google Search Console or third-party software to scan for broken links on your site.
   • Set up regular checks to ensure any new or old links work properly.
2. Fix or Redirect Broken Links:
   • Update the URLs for any broken links that lead to content that has been moved or deleted.
   • You can either find a new source or remove them for broken external links.
3. Use 301 Redirects:
   • Implement 301 redirects to guide users and search engines from the broken link to the correct page.

Test speed: run a page through the Core Web Vitals Checker to see load, interactivity and layout-shift results.

Make Your Site Faster

Page speed is an essential factor that can significantly impact your website’s crawl efficiency. When your site is slow, search engine crawlers take longer to access and render pages. This delay can result in search engines crawling fewer pages within their allocated crawl budget, which ultimately affects how many of your pages get indexed.

By improving your site’s speed, you help ensure crawlers can efficiently access all your pages, maximizing your crawl budget.

How to Make Your Site Faster

1. Optimize Images:
   • Compress large images without sacrificing quality to reduce load times.
   • Use modern formats like WebP to achieve smaller file sizes.
2. Minimize JavaScript and CSS Files:
   • Remove unnecessary code and minify JavaScript and CSS files to make them load faster.
3. Leverage Browser Caching:
   • Set up browser caching so users don’t have to reload assets whenever they visit your site.
4. Enable Content Delivery Networks (CDN):
   • Use a CDN to serve content from servers closer to the user, reducing load times globally.

No desktop crawler? The Website SEO Audit gives a quick technical check of a page and its links.

How to Audit Crawl Depth with Screaming Frog?

One of the best tools for auditing crawl depth is Screaming Frog, a robust website crawling tool that provides detailed insights into your site’s structure. Here’s how you can audit your website’s crawl depth using Screaming Frog:

Step-by-Step Process to Audit Crawl Depth

1. Crawl Your Site:
   • Start by launching Screaming Frog and input your website URL.
   • Begin the crawl from your homepage to ensure the tool scans all pages within your website’s structure.
2. Filter the Results:
   • Once the crawl is complete, go to the “Internal” tab within Screaming Frog.
   • Apply a filter by selecting “HTML” to focus only on the HTML pages, as these are the primary content pages relevant for SEO.
3. Export the Data:
   • Export the filtered data into a spreadsheet (usually a CSV file). This allows for better manipulation and review of the data.
4. Remove Non-Indexable Pages:
   • In the exported spreadsheet, filter the “Indexability” column.
   • Remove non-indexable pages, such as index pages or pages blocked by robots.txt. These are typically unimportant for search engines to index, so focusing on indexable pages will give you the most accurate insight.
5. Sort by Crawl Depth:
   • Next, sort the “Crawl Depth” column in descending order. This will list the pages with the highest crawl depth at the top, showing which pages are buried deep within your site structure.
6. Identify Key Pages:
   • Look for essential pages with a crawl depth above three (a common rule of thumb, not a Google rule). These pages might be harder for search engines to discover and index, which can harm their visibility in search results.
7. Take Action:
   • Review the key pages with deep crawl depth and determine how to reduce their depth. Consider adjusting the internal linking structure to bring those pages closer to the homepage or make them more easily accessible by crawlers.
   • Prioritize the most important pages by ensuring they are easily reachable, using fewer clicks. These could be product pages, cornerstone content, or key service pages.

How Do You Track Pages With Crawl Depth In A Databox?

To track pages by crawl depth using Databox, follow these simple steps to get a detailed view of your website’s structure and improve your SEO performance:

Connect SEMrush to Databox: Begin by connecting your SEMrush account to Databox. SEMrush provides the crawl depth data you need to track the performance of your web pages based on their crawl depth.

Select the Metric to Track: Once SEMrush is connected, go to the list of available metrics and choose the crawl depth data you want to track. This metric will provide insights into the depth of specific pages within your site’s structure.

Get Daily or Weekly Performance Updates: Set up scorecards or a weekly digest to receive daily updates on your crawl depth performance. This will help you stay informed about any changes or issues that need attention.

Set Goals for Improvement: To further optimize your site, set specific goals in Databox to track and improve the performance of pages based on their crawl depth. This ensures you’re continuously working toward making your site more crawl-friendly.

Conclusion

Ensuring a crawl-friendly website is essential for maximizing your site’s visibility and SEO performance. By optimizing crawl depth, improving internal linking, fixing broken links, and speeding up your website, you can help search engines discover and index your most valuable pages. Regularly auditing your site’s structure and making necessary adjustments ensures that your content is easily accessible to search engine bots, enhancing your rankings and user experience.

FAQs

What is crawl depth in SEO?

Crawl depth, or click depth, is the number of clicks needed to reach a page from the homepage by following links. The homepage is depth 0, pages linked from it are depth 1, and so on. Pages with no internal links at all are orphan pages.

What is a good crawl depth?

Google publishes no limit. A common rule of thumb is to keep important pages within three clicks of the homepage. What matters more is that every important page is linked from a relevant page, ideally a hub, menu or category page, so it is easy to find.

Does crawl depth affect rankings?

Not directly. Google says crawling is not a ranking signal, and pages close to the home page are not ranked higher for that reason alone. Depth can affect how quickly a page is discovered and recrawled, and a page must be crawled and indexed before it can rank.

How do I reduce crawl depth?

Link important pages from the homepage, main menu or hub pages, add contextual links from related articles, remove orphan pages by linking them in, and keep your sitemap current. Use real crawlable links (a elements with href), then re-crawl the site to confirm the new depth.