Click depth checker
How many clicks does it take to reach each of your pages from the home page? We follow only the links inside your articles — not menus, not pagination — so you see which pages your writing actually leads to, and which are buried or not reached at all.
Free · No account · A scan of your site
We read your published pages
The same free, read-only scan as the other tools, up to 500 pages. A scan from the last day is reused.
We walk the links in your writing
From your home page (or the folder you typed), one click at a time, through links inside articles only.
We show what’s deep and what’s missing
A count at each depth, the pages four or more clicks down, and the pages no chain of article links reaches.
What the evidence says about depth
Google has said plainly that what matters is how many clicks a page is from the home page — not how many slashes are in its address — and that pages closer to the home page are treated as more important.1 It has never given a number.
Data on crawling points the same way. On one large site Botify measured in 2012, Google crawled a smaller share of pages the deeper they sat.2 That is one site over one month: suggestive, not a law.
The “3-click rule” is a myth for readers. Studies of real navigation found no sign that people give up after three clicks.3 In SEO tools, “three clicks” is a convention, not a finding. We use it the same way: pages at four clicks or more are flagged as worth a look, labelled as a convention.
How this checker measures
We start at your home page, or at the folder you typed, and follow links one click at a time — but only links inside the writing of each page. A menu puts a handful of pages one click from everywhere, and pagination puts old posts dozens of clicks deep; neither tells you whether your articles connect your pages, which is the part you control post by post.
That choice has a consequence worth knowing: on a blog whose home page or folder page is a list of posts, the theme writes those links, not you. If most of your pages come back “not reached”, that is what it means — your articles do not link to each other much, and only the archive does.
Limits
Up to 500 pages. Depth is measured within the pages read, so on a larger site a page past the limit counts as not reached even if it is linked.
How to read your results
- Pages at each depth — most of a healthy site sits one to three clicks down.
- Four clicks or deeper — worth linking from somewhere nearer the top if they matter to you (a convention, not a rule).
- Not reached by article links — no chain of links in your writing leads there. These are orphans, or only linked from other orphans. This is usually the number to act on.
- Average depth is only over pages that were reached; when most pages are not reached, the result says so rather than showing a flattering average.
What to do next
Link deep pages from pages near the top: hub pages and your most-read posts on the same subject. One good link from a page one click down moves a page to two. Our guide to click depth covers which pages to move first, the internal linking strategy guide how hub pages fit in, and silos versus topic clusters how to group pages so each sits near its hub.
Pages that are not reached at all are orphans — the orphan page finder lists them longest first from the same scan, and the page link inspector shows what links into any one of them. Silotree does the same work every week and suggests the sentence to link from.
How this compares with other free tools
As each tool’s own page described it when we checked on 11 October 2026. Tools change — if a line here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
| Tool | Limits | Menu and footer links kept apart? |
|---|---|---|
| This tool | 500 pages per scan; no account or email | Yes — depth through links in your writing only |
| QuickSEO click depth estimator | 30 pages, 5 levels | Not stated |
| Linkbot Internal Link Grader | Email required; report sent by email after minutes | Not stated |
Sources
Each one is labelled with how much weight it can bear. Where the evidence is thin, the page says so.
- Google, said publicly Search Engine Journal — Google: click depth matters more than URL structure (Jun 2018). John Mueller: what matters is how many clicks a page is from the home page, not slashes in its address; pages closer to the home page are treated as more important.
- Study Botify — Google is blind (Dec 2012). On one large site, Google crawled a steadily smaller share of pages the deeper they sat. One site, one month: suggestive, not general.
- Study Nielsen Norman Group — The 3-click rule for navigation is false (Aug 2019). There is no evidence that people give up after three clicks; the ‘3-click rule’ is a myth for readers.
- Google documentation Google Search Central — Link best practices for Google (updated Dec 2025). Every page you care about should be linked from at least one other page; there is no ideal number of links; anchor text should be descriptive, concise and not stuffed with keywords.
About the click depth checker
What is click depth?
The number of clicks it takes to get from your home page to a page by following links. Google has said pages closer to the home page are treated as more important.
What is a good click depth?
Google gives no number. A common SEO convention is to keep important pages within three clicks of the home page; we flag four or more as worth a look. Being reachable at all matters more than any exact depth.
Is the 3-click rule real?
Not for readers: usability research found people do not give up after three clicks. In SEO it survives as a convention for keeping important pages near the top, and this checker labels it as one.
Why only links inside articles?
Menus put a handful of pages one click from everywhere, and pagination puts old posts dozens of clicks deep. Neither tells you whether your writing connects your pages — and that is the part you can change.
What does “not reached” mean?
No chain of article links from the start page leads there. The page may be in your menu, an archive or your sitemap, but your writing never points to it.
Is click depth the same as URL depth?
No. The number of folders in an address does not matter to Google; the number of clicks from the home page does.
Same scan, other questions
- Keyword cannibalization checkerSearches two or more of your pages compete for, with the page to keep.
- Orphan page finderPages no article links to, dead ends, and your sitemap against your links.
- Internal links to a pageEvery link into and out of one page, with the words each link uses.
- Anchor text analyzerGeneric, repetitive and conflicting link text in your articles.
- Internal links per page calculatorType a word count, get a sensible range of links — and why.
- Internal linking health quizTen questions, a score out of 100, and what to fix first.
- Which internal linking plugin?An honest picker — it recommends other tools where they fit better.
See every finding at once.
The full free audit: unlinked posts, dead ends, broken links and redirects. No account, no card.
Free audit · No account needed · No changes to your site