Our site (a niche financial publication: insideARM.com) requires some more room in the sidebar. We're considering removing the categories (we call them topics) sidebar block, or cutting down the number of items displayed within it.
My concern is that we'd be removing a direct link to landing pages for important keyword terms from our most powerful page (the index). Sure, we have the terms listed in the footer, but I am worried that the position change will lower the value of the links. Our users don't really use these links for navigational purposes, which is why it comes up as a potential removed item.
Am I wrong to worry about this? Would we be crippling our category pages by doing this?