What Are Structure Signals?
Structure signals read how clearly a page is organised for readers and crawlers — its header, navigation, main-content and footer landmark regions, its breadcrumb trail, and its semantic sections. Clear structure is how a machine finds the parts that matter.
The 6 Signals in This Category
Each is defined the way a customer would read it — plainly, with no fix instruction and no data source named. DNA Match counts a signal only where the winners in your market clearly separate from the trailing pages.
- Header landmark region
- Whether the page marks its header region, so a machine can tell the masthead from the content.
- Navigation landmark region
- Whether the page marks its navigation region, so its menu is identifiable as navigation.
- Main-content landmark region
- Whether the page marks its main-content region, so the primary content is unmistakable.
- Footer landmark region
- Whether the page marks its footer region, the counterpart that closes the page.
- Breadcrumb navigation
- Whether the page shows a breadcrumb trail — the 'you are here' path back up through the site.
- Number of semantic sections
- How many distinct content sections the page is organised into.
The Questions People Ask
What are structure signals?
Structure signals read how clearly a page is organised for readers and crawlers — its header, navigation, main-content and footer landmark regions, its breadcrumb trail, and its semantic sections. Clear structure is how a machine finds the parts that matter.
Do these signals tell me how to fix my site?
No. These are definitions — what each signal is and why the winning pages carry it. The specific work belongs to the member report and the Rank Codex, never a public page.
The Rank Codex reads these signals at depth, in the order they are worth the work — decomposed and specific to your market.