Architecture is one decision repeated: how does someone get from the homepage to the page that answers their question, and how does a crawler follow the same path. Depth, navigation, URLs, and internal links are four views of that one structure, so change them together or they drift.
\nAim to put any page that matters within three clicks of the homepage. It isn't a law, but a critical page four or more levels down is a symptom worth chasing.
\n| Shape | \nFits | \nCosts | \n
|---|---|---|
| Flat, 2 levels | \nSmall sites, portfolios | \nStops scaling once a nav item has 20 children | \n
| Moderate, 3 levels | \nMost SaaS and content sites | \nUsually the right answer | \n
| Deep, 4 or more | \nLarge catalogs, big docs | \nScales, but buries things without strong linking | \n
Go as flat as the navigation tolerates. When a dropdown passes roughly 20 items, that's the signal to add a level rather than keep the list flat.
\nLevels: L0 is the homepage, L1 is a primary section (/features, /blog), L2 is a page within it (/features/analytics), L3 and beyond are detail pages (/docs/api/authentication).
| Type | \nDepth | \nSections | \nURL shape | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| SaaS marketing | \n2 to 3 | \nHome, Features, Pricing, Blog, Docs | \n/features/{name}, /blog/{slug} | \n
| Content site | \n2 to 3 | \nHome, Blog, Categories, About | \n/blog/{slug}, /blog/category/{slug} | \n
| Ecommerce | \n3 to 4 | \nHome, Categories, Products | \n/{category}/{subcategory}/{product} | \n
| Documentation | \n3 to 4 | \nHome, Guides, Reference | \n/docs/{section}/{page} | \n
| SaaS plus content | \n3 to 4 | \nHome, Product, Blog, Resources, Docs | \n/product/{feature}, /blog/{slug} | \n
| Small business | \n1 to 2 | \nHome, Services, About, Contact | \n/services/{name} | \n
Readable, lowercase, hyphenated, mirroring the hierarchy, with one trailing-slash policy enforced everywhere. Short but still descriptive: /blog/landing-page-conversions beats /blog/how-to-improve-your-landing-page-conversion-rates.
The mistakes that cost the most:
\n/blog/2026/07/25/title adds nothing and ages the post visibly./product/12345 and /blog?id=123 should be slugs./features/analytics alongside /product/automation.references/patterns.md has the URL pattern per page type, navigation layouts, and the diagram formats to hand back.
Primary navigation holds 4 to 7 items, ordered by importance, with the logo linking home and the call to action rightmost. Past 7, people stop reading the list and start hunting.
\nFooters group into columns: product, resources, company, legal. Sidebars carry within-section navigation for docs and long content. Breadcrumbs mirror the URL path exactly, with every segment linked except the current page, and they pair with BreadcrumbList schema.
Breadcrumbs are the cheapest structural win available: they add internal links on every page, they make hierarchy legible to a crawler, and they can earn a richer result.
\nHub and spoke is what makes a set of posts add up to more than its pages, because it concentrates the signal on the hub rather than spreading it across a dozen equal posts competing with each other.
\nAn ASCII tree of the hierarchy with the URL at each node, a URL map table (page, URL, parent, where it appears in navigation, priority), the redirect list when anything moves, and a Mermaid diagram when the structure is worth seeing rather than reading. references/patterns.md has the formats.