<b>Indexation decays with every click of depth</b>

<b>Indexation decays with every click of depth</b>

Indexation rate by click-depth from homepage, sampled across 96 large sites (≥50k URLs):

— depth 1: 99.1% ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
— depth 2: 96.3% ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
— depth 3: 89.7% ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░
— depth 4: 71.2% ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░
— depth 5: 48.6% ▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░
— depth 6+: 22.4% ▓▓░░░░░░░░

The knee is between depth 3 and 4 — a 18.5pp drop, the steepest single step in the curve.

So what: depth 4 is where money pages go to die. If a template puts inventory at depth 5+, the fix is structural (flatter facets, pagination caps), not more sitemaps.