Tree structure : glossary definition | Habefast

A digital or website tree structure allows data to be distributed and classified hierarchically.

Called a “tree structure” as a reference to its tree-like shape, it represents the architecture of a website and enables the organization and listing of the files that make up the site. Its purpose is to facilitate user navigation.

A website tree structure is a hierarchical data organization system structured into directories and subdirectories.

It operates in levels, defining the structure and organization of the pages within a website or a document storage system, such as an intranet.

At its core, it is based on a root file, which serves as the fundamental unit and the first level of the hierarchy. From this root, main branches develop, which then break down into secondary branches, containing multiple subfolders that are further divided into subcategories.

This classification system makes it easy to retrieve textual or visual elements from a site by following a path that leads to the exact location of the files. To illustrate this concept, let’s take the example of the folder structure on your computer. If you’re looking for your vacation photos, the file organization might look like this:

📂 PC > 📂 Desktop > 📂 Images > 📂 2021 > 📂 Summer > 📂 July

This structure highlights the navigation path taken and the breakdown into sections, which helps facilitate file storage and retrieval.

As we have seen, a website’s tree structure serves to organize its content and structure its layout.

It also plays a crucial role in search engine optimization (SEO).

By guiding user navigation, it directly contributes to a positive user experience—reducing the number of clicks needed to access information, facilitating navigation through an effective internal linking system, and ultimately encouraging visitors to stay on the site and convert.

Furthermore, the tree structure influences the work of crawlers, the search engine robots responsible for analyzing web pages. Their analysis determines the importance of each page within the site, which in turn affects its ranking in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

This is why a clear and well-structured hierarchy is essential: the most important pages should be close to the root of the tree structure to benefit from better SEO ranking. Conversely, pages that are further away are generally considered less strategic and have a weaker SEO impact.