Number of links in breadcrumb

[seo.academy]

Does google take the number of links in breadcrumb as a indicator to the depth of the page in the site structure?

That will mean that a page with 5 links in the breadcrumb is a page very far away from the index, therefore a less important page.

[Theo-NL]

5 links in the breadcrumbs will by definition mean this page is 5 clicks away from the main page right?

Google doesn't have to look at the actual breadcrumbs for that, they can 'simply' count the hops they have to make from the main page to the page being discussed here.

[EGOL]

Instead of folder depth or number of breadcrumb steps..... I believe that the link architecture of your site is far more important.

A page can be waaaay deep in the folders but if you have links to it everywhere across your site google will figure out that the page is very important.

We have a couple of pages that are deep in folders but that are linked to in the persistent navigation of our site.  Google knows that they are important pages.

[SteveOllington]

How much value would you place on "the flatter the better" for site architecture then?

I mean I understand what you're saying but is it not still the case that less sub folders is better, even if just for the benefit of shorter links?

[EGOL]

I use folders to organize my files but use links to prioritize my content for both visitors and the search engines.

As for "flat architecture"....  I think that the more links you can get into your deep pages the better.   Using that philosophy my persistent navigation has way over 100 links... and the blog on that site has over 100 categories in the sidebar plus the persistent links.  But I have enough linkjuice to support it.

[SteveOllington]

Oh okay, so would you say it wasn't necessary to avoid extra sub-directories where possible then, as long as the linking structure is optimal?

I mean, if you had the option to either use or not use a sub-directory, given that there will b some benefit in having the folder with keywords in it... which would you choose?

*Edit: All other things being equal I mean.

[dvansant]

As mentioned, a "flat architecture" is measured by how many clicks away pages are from the home page. You could put everything in the main directory and still have pages that require 10 clicks to get to, or have files within 7 folders that are linked to from the homepage.

That said, a logical hierarchy will make the most sense to you and your users.