3 Tier Website Structure vs. 2 Tier. Which is Better for SEO?

[apollocreed]

I have a large site with several thousands of pages. Having 120 categories on the homepage just does not seem pretty on the eyes and is probably confusing to the visitor. But all SEO experts tell us is that having a 2 tier website structure, where any page on a site is just 2 clicks away, is the best for SEO.

But doing so in my case means having over 100 categories on the homepage. I can however change that to have 20 categories with several of them having 15 -20 sub-categories. But having sub-categories would mean a 3 Tier navigation structure.

e.g: Home>>Dog Training>Alsation>How To Make Your Alsation Happy
(Home>>Category>Sub-Category>Article Post)

A 2 tier for the above example would be:
Home>>Alsation>How To Make Your Alsation Happy
(Home>Category>Article Post)


Does anybody know if it really makes a big SEO difference if you have a 3 Tier website structure instead of the usual 2 Tier structure?

[Buyseech]

Its ok to have a 3 tier, if its friendlier to the user. In your case, I see no problem with it. If you would have lets say 20-30 posts and each had to be 3-clicks away, now that would be annoying.

Strive for user friendliness and all will be well.

Sincerely, Buyseech

[AbdullahKaragoz]

I wonder the same question too.


I have read from a book about SEO that a website should have maximum a 3 tier structure:

e.g.

HOME:Business/Online-Business/AdSense/How-to-Structure-your-adsense-site?

Also everypage should be accessible with just 3 clicks.

(But even a website has 3 tier structure, one can need to have 4+ clicks to access a page, like if a website has a lot of articles, and one need to go to next pages. E.g.:

Home:Business, 1. Click --> Online-Business, 2.click -->AdSense, 3.click --> page 9, 4.click --> How-to-Structure-your-adsense-site? ).

But what do you think if a website has more than 3 tier structure if it makes some sense?

E.g. I mean like these (4 tier structure):

HOME:Nature/Insects/Household-pests/Bed-bugs/Actual-article-about-bed-bugs

HOME:Food&Drink/Health-Beverages/Tea/Green-Tea/actual-article-about-green-tea

[packerfan]

I'd say go study about.com and you'll get your answers.

They display 100 categories on a single page in a way that makes perfect sense and is very user friendly. You could also use some fancy CSS3 menus that show the user 5 sets of 20 in a tabbed menu but to the search engine they're all on the same page.

[furniture7]

2 Tier Website Structure the best because of you increase your tier structure the Google give divided your PR for your site, so 2 Tier Website Structure is the best for SEO and Google suggestion

[AbdullahKaragoz]

Originally Posted by furniture7

2 Tier Website Structure the best because of you increase your tier structure the Google give divided your PR for your site, so 2 Tier Website Structure is the best for SEO and Google suggestion

But I think one could also have other link structure to make the Google easier to crawle your site.

Or one could have an alphabetical topic list on a website, so it's more user friendly.

So with an alphabetical list of topics, or extra link structure to makte the website more Google friendly, the website could be more user friendly and Google-bot friendly even the website has more than 3 tier structure.

Just my opinions, but I don't know what do you think.