Menu Structure

[MickEdwards]

I'm working on a site where there is a top level menu with a dropdown off a couple of the main headings and subsequent dropdown from one or two of those dropdowns.  Usual stuff.

The main problem we are having is the ranking of one of the main menu pages, some of which is historical stuff we have cleaned up and waiting for Penguin.

My question is whether the following is a prudent step.  The main menu option/page and keyword is something like "Green Widgets" but this activates a dropdown where there is a link to 'Types of Green Widget', then again there is a dropdown with several pages to different types of Green widget.  The two menu items "Green Widgets" and "Types of Green Widgets" both link to the "Green Widget" page.

As the "Types of Green Widgets" link is sitewide and not really in the right flavour for the "Green Widget" page would it be prudent to remove the link element of that menu item or set it to /#

[MikeRoberts]

You could always test the link to see if it is really being used from the secondary navigation more so (or at all) than the main navigation link. Create a parameter and track it over a few months in analytics. That way you don't over-optimize in the interim but 3 months from now (or less, or more, really that's up to you) you can definitively say whether it is better to remove it or if leaving it alone was the correct move.

[MickEdwards]

yep, without giving the site it's difficult to exactly describe.  No it's not breadcrumbs, or on-page links.  It's a secondary menu option to the same page they have historically had problems with.  That I understand as there are valid ways to lead to the same page and arguably show importance to that page.  But in this case it seems to be a secondary menu link to the same page just for the sake of another sitewide menu link that isn't really helpful to the visitor.  But I might have a little "anti-over-optimising fever"!

[MikeRoberts]

I can't really visualize that well how the links are laid out from your description. Its been a long day, so that might be it.

So it really depends on how it links back to those pages. e.g. If they're site navigation breadcrumbs then I don't see the problem as it potentially establishes relevancy for the topic and facilitates movement through the site for both users and bots. If its just an internal link for the sake of a link in the body of the page, maybe not so much. But if its a completely relevant link and you see in analytics that people who enter on the one page are regularly going to the other, and vice versa, then obviously it is of use to the customer/visitor. If its an issue of pages being link heavy and you're worried that its diluting link equity or creating a user experience issue and you want to clean up the page and/or make it easier/more intuitive to use, then a heat map tool like Crazy Egg might be useful for helping you determine which links to keep and which are flak.