SEO Insight: Site Structure Is About Much More Than URLs

Top-level pages win because they sit higher in the hierarchy and receive far more authority

A top-level page ranks better not because its URL is short, but because its position in the site architecture makes it inherently more important

Crawl prioritization always favors top-level pages because they are discovered sooner and revisited more often

Deeply nested pages are crawled less frequently, reducing their ability to rank and refresh in search results

Top-level pages accumulate dramatically more internal links, which amplifies their authority across the entire cluster

Child pages within deeper folders receive a fraction of the internal links, weakening their ability to compete in search

Backlinks flow disproportionately to top-level thematic pages, giving them stronger ranking power and reinforcing their hub status

Internal links plus backlinks always compound to make top-level hub pages far more authoritative than any of their individual child pages