Every indexed post gets a Navigation Severity Score from 0 to 5. It estimates how difficult the post is to find using the original blog's native navigation.
This is not scientific. It is a small, but consistent act of measurement applied to a funny problem: some posts are technically public, but in practice harder to rediscover than they should be.
The score considers signals like:
- whether the post appears in the main archive or only in a narrower date view
- how old the post is
- whether it has useful neighboring posts
- whether the title is easy to search for
- whether the original site gives readers clear topic, category, or route-based navigation
- whether a reasonable person would probably give up and use a search engine
The labels are intentionally dry:
- 0: Clearly Signposted
- 1: Mildly Buried
- 2: Poorly Marked
- 3: Cartographic Incident
- 4: Cave Inscription
- 5: Lost Scroll
The score is not meant to criticize the post itself. It says nothing about quality, importance, or whether the writing is worth reading. It only describes findability.
A good post can have a high severity score. In fact, that is partly the point. Useful writing should not require a shovel, a timestamp, and an act of faith to discover.