Is there a definitive answer regarding the SEO effects of directory depth an a URL path? I see many sites saying that the closer to root the better, but others say only ‘click-depth’ is important, or the number of clicks from the home page that it takes to get to a page.
It depends on what type of content the site is promoting and how much of it there is. Google wants to promote sites that organize their content in a way that makes it user-friendly.
Google’s algorithm is extremely complicated, and I do not claim to understand how it works, but I am very confident that the amount of directories deep a web page is from the root will not have a significant impact on rankings. You should just do whatever makes the most sense to the user.