The percentage of people in the world that even care about SEO is very small (5%), you can verify this by going to a dog park or some other public place and ask people you meet "What is SEO?".
Or even better ask the general public how Google decides the top organic rankings? This can really bring out some funny and interesting answers. My point is people who are SEO experts and also Google, forget that 95% of the world's population does not even know what we are talking about when I say "I am going to give you some advanced SEO link building training".
Today's SEO lesson is a case study about the good quality Directory listings that you should be in. I have written other important SEO articles about this topic. Furthermore this is a safe list of sites that follow all Google Webmaster Guidelines which is very significant.
Some of my websites are listed in these outstanding Directories, and sometimes it is better to be in the smaller Directories depending on where you are placed in the largest, oldest, and most expensive to submit your site to. You need to see if you will be on a page which Google indexes and this is not something you can control with most Directories. It is tied to how many levels deep the web page you are on is.
E.g. you could be on the greatest web site in the world and if you are listed on the 12th level down from the home page you will not receive any direct traffic and you will not receive any credit from Google. Because rarely if ever does Google index that deep. I would say from experience Google will only go 6-7 levels deep if it is a big site they like. So if you are on the 8th level down from the home page Google will not index your link (it will not count in your favor).
How deep Google indexes a web site is a reflection of what Google thinks of the site. However if Google is wise they want to index deep on "high quality" sites as Google would miss great content if they did not.
In the last ten years the level of how deep Google indexes a web site has changed to some degree about 12+ times. I know this just by actual observations and ongoing testing. I remember just before Rankbrain was announced I could tell Google did something major to improve search results. I even emailed a Google VP about the significant improvement I noticed and congratulated him before Rankbrain was publicly announced. I suppose this qualifies me as a nerd as not that many "normal" people would be so excited about a search engine enhancement.
So in an effort to keep all your web pages indexed in Google it is wise to use a very flat website structure.
Also you should consider your users and not just what Google may do. This excellent article I link to also confirms my research that a "flat" website architecture is much easier for your visitors to use and understand.
E.g. you could be on the greatest web site in the world and if you are listed on the 12th level down from the home page you will not receive any direct traffic and you will not receive any credit from Google. Because rarely if ever does Google index that deep. I would say from experience Google will only go 6-7 levels deep if it is a big site they like. So if you are on the 8th level down from the home page Google will not index your link (it will not count in your favor).
In the last ten years the level of how deep Google indexes a web site has changed to some degree about 12+ times. I know this just by actual observations and ongoing testing. I remember just before Rankbrain was announced I could tell Google did something major to improve search results. I even emailed a Google VP about the significant improvement I noticed and congratulated him before Rankbrain was publicly announced. I suppose this qualifies me as a nerd as not that many "normal" people would be so excited about a search engine enhancement.
So in an effort to keep all your web pages indexed in Google it is wise to use a very flat website structure.
Also you should consider your users and not just what Google may do. This excellent article I link to also confirms my research that a "flat" website architecture is much easier for your visitors to use and understand.
