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How much does it take you to find required information on a website? Five or ten minutes? Half an hour? Internet was meant to be the quickest information source, but nothing is perfect. Quite often we visit a site and start wandering the vicious circle which consists of dozens of pages, but we fail to find the page we need. What is the reason? The answer is evident – it is excessive website depth.
As a matter of fact, website depth refers to certain “nesting” of a website, i.e. the number of successive levels that lead from the main page of the site to the required one. If this number is unreasonably big it becomes very hard to find necessary information on this site, the visitors quickly get irritated and the reputation of the site is irreparably harmed.
What is the optimal website depth?
To figure out the optimal website depth you should first of all get acquainted with the types of website navigation systems according to the nesting depth.
There are four main kinds of website navigation systems as far as website depth is concerned:
- one-level;
- two-level;
- three-level;
- four-level.
One-level navigation system is suitable for small websites (up to 40 pages in volume). Websites with one-level navigation system consist of the main page and a number of first-level pages. Links from the main page refer to the first level – it is a successive, linear structure of the site.
A site with two-level navigation system consists of the main page (the zero level), the first and the second level. The links from the zero level refer to the first-level pages. The links from the first level refer to the second-level pages. This navigation system is suitable for the sites which contain from 30-40 to 600-700 pages.
Three-level navigation system is designed for websites which consist of more than 700 pages. Similarly to the two-level system, a site consists from the main page, first-, second-, and third-level pages. The links from the main page refer to the first-level pages, the links from the first level refer to the second-level pages, the links from the second level refer to the third-level pages.
Finally, four-level website navigation system can boast of even bigger website depth. One more level – the forth one – is added. Just like in the above-mentioned kinds of sites, the links from the previous level refer to the pages of the next level. The only reason to develop a website with four-level navigation system is a very (!) big volume of the site. In some cases such website depth is the result of the web designer's mistake or the site owner's whim.
As most of corporate sites contain up to 600-700 pages, the optimal solution for them is two-level navigation system and corresponding website depth. One-level navigation will be the most appropriate variant for small business sites or advertising promo sites which consist of no more than 30-40 pages. And the best solution for Web portals is three- or four-level navigation system (depending on the site volume).
TAGS
website depth,
optimal website depth,
navigation system,
nesting,
website navigation system,
website navigation |
website design 
