Good Site Navigation verses Success

[eworld]

I have been experimenting with the number of links on our pages verses the number of hits we get. Success seems to be tied to having hundreds of links on a page verses ease of navigation.

We have a research company that sells research on educational topics. Last November I decided to divide our category of literature research topics into 10 different subtopics and redistribute the links to the subtopic pages. The main literature research page had over 800 links on it. It was one of our top performing pages. I was hoping that by spreading the links out in logical categories i could distribute the wealth and have better navigation for the user. Now after 6 months the traffic to that page has dropped 800% and the sub-pages have only gained a very minimal percentage. Overall, the hits in the literature genre have dropped from 560 per month to around 80. Ouch!

I thought Google would love this strategy, as it reduced page load time, links on a page and made the navigation logical and easier to see all available options. Not the case.

Question is: Should I keep the subpages but go back and put all the links back on the main literature page, putting it back up to 800 links? Should I get rid of the subpages, because the links will all be on the main literature page if I move them?

Any advice is appreciated!

Karen

[eworld]

Good idea Journeyman. I started to wonder if it is maybe the actual sub catagories that I chose rather than the structure. I'll dig into that more.

Thank you!

Karen

[BenFox]

Hi Karen,

8 months is a long time when you're in the throes of Google. Your problem might not revolve entirely around your navigation.

However in answer to your question - are they the right subpages?

Personally I'd do a card sorting exercise to determine which sub categories your users are expecting to see.  You can normally back this data up with some keyword research to see which sub category type terms are generating a lot of search volumes.

For example if you've got a page called "English Literature 1800-1850" and more people are searching for "Romanticism period in English literature" then maybe you've got the wrong subpage.

It is a bit of work, especially joining up the keyword research with the card sorting  but at least you'll know that you've got the right sub categories.

Hope that helps at least a little.