Site Migration Question - Do I Need to Preserve Links in Main Menu to Preserve Traffic or Can I Simply Link to on Each Page?

[ruislip18]

Hi There

We are currently redesigning the following site https://tinyurl.com/y37ndjpn

The local pages links in the main menu do provide organic search traffic. In order to preserve this traffic, would be wise to preserve these links in the main menu?

Or could we have a secondary menu list (perhaps in the header or footer), featured on every page, which links to these pages?

Many Thanks In Advance for Responses

[ruislip18]

Hi OrioleOriole and effectdigital, apologies for the delay, but thank you for your help, we preserved the links in the end.

I've marked your responses as good answers and liked them, thanks again

[OrioleOriole3456]

I think you  Need to Preserve Links in Main Menu to Preserve Traffic or Can I Simply Link to on Each Page

[effectdigital]

Personally I think it would be wise to preserve those links. A secondary top-of-page menu (maybe hover to expand) would preserve the authority in a similar way, footer links don't really do much in modern SEO

It depends what you want. Maybe it's worth sacrificing some small amount of authority from those pages, to have killer new UX that converts 10x better. Do the math