A WebmasterWorld thread points to an older Microsoft Patent application named System and method for ranking search results using click distance.

The patent is about using the distance of a click in search rankings. Here is the abstract:

In short, how many clicks it takes to get from the home page to a specific internal web page.

This is a common concern for many SEOs. The quicker the click from the home page to a specific document, typically the better that document will rank. Why? Well, typically your home page has the highest link authority and passing that link juice down can only go so far.

Senior WebmasterWorld member, Sgt_Kickaxe, summed up his thoughts in the thread:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Image credit to ShutterStock for highway