Left hand Navigation & google

[AndrewPK]

there are 2 parts to this question

For quite some time we have been using a javascript 'pop out' menu system on our site, unfortunately as our site grew, the menu got sluggish, so last week we killed it, and went for the "yahoo sections" menu showing just the top level sections (so basically just a list of the top level sections running down the left)

before we did this we had around 670 pages being indexed by google, a number that had been steadily growing for some time. however now roughly a week after the swap we are down to about 250 pages indexed

Is this loss of listings on google down to the menu changing, both the menus used CGI-Bin flavoured links,
Is this a short term thing or is it going to mean a permanent drop in google listings
Has it go anything to do with only showing top level sections

this leads me on to part 2 of this post,
Which of the menus available in actinic offer the best balance between speed & google indexing.

I would like to stick with the layout style we have now, with the top level sections, However one thing i would like to add is sub sections for the Section you are currently in

IE

when in section A it would show

SECTION A
Subsection 1
Subsection 2
Subsection 3
Subsection 4

SECTIONB

SECTION C


when in section b it would show

SECTION A

SECTIONB
Subsection 1
Subsection 2
Subsection 3
Subsection 4

SECTION C

I would only want it to show the sub sections WHILST in that section,

is that possible

AndrewPK200

[Duncan Rounding]

Norman's Calypso menu may be what you want, see here:
http://www.drillpine.biz/actinicstuff/index.html

[AndrewPK]

its not a dynamic menu I was looking for (just got rid of one of those cause it was slowing the site down!)

basically once a customer has gone into the "musical instruments" section I want the left hand nav to show the musical instrument sub sections (ideally just one level of sub sections)

when the customer is in the "DJ Equipment" section I would like it to show the subsections of DJ equipment

so once the customer has actually gone into a section, i would like my left hand nav to show the 'Top level section links' sections For ALL top level sections, and the 1st set of Subsection links for the section they are in

AndrewPK

[Duncan Rounding]

I see what you mean but the Calypso menu is nothing like Yahoo Sections which is reknown to be cumbersome. I think the Calypso menu is css based.

[leehack]

Yahoo sections is huge and cumbersome, i seem to recall Norman's menu is about 75% smaller. Its certainly possible to do what you want and Norman could undoubtedly do this for you, i'd recommend contacting him and asking for a price.

[AndrewPK]

hmm, the 'yahoo sections' thingamabob we are using is not the standard one, have got rid of the ridiculously large Act_section_tree.js file and we are just using the act_sections file, which give us our top level sections menu

The menu that we just got rid of was one of normans menu's, the 'NorTree' menu

the other problem is that collapso seems to be a V8 add on, we are running V7 (7.0.4 methinks)

as I say, we're not really looking for a dynamic menu, more of a static menu, that changes only when you move from one top level section to another.

AndrewPK

[fleetwood]

If I am reading you correctly, you are just after a 'simple' listing.

I think this is what NQV:CHILDSECTIONS is for (in its various guises).

I'm afraid I'm not in A7 at the moment, so can't check it, but I'm sure you can use CHILDSECTIONS to build an automated simple list which is just the sub sections below your current section.

[AndrewPK]

If I am reading you correctly, you are just after a 'simple' listing.

I think this is what NQV:CHILDSECTIONS is for (in its various guises).

I'm afraid I'm not in A7 at the moment, so can't check it, but I'm sure you can use CHILDSECTIONS to build an automated simple list which is just the sub sections below your current section.

Thats hit the nail right on the head!

Could anybody give more details on this idea

AndrewPK

[fleetwood]

Take a look at Act_Primary template for:

NETQUOTEVAR:CHILDSECTIONS_NAMES
NETQUOTEVAR:CHILDSECTIONS_URLS
NETQUOTEVAR:CHILDSECTIONS_IMAGES
NETQUOTEVAR:CHILDSECTIONS_IMAGEWIDTHS
NETQUOTEVAR:CHILDSECTIONS_IMAGEHEIGHTS
NETQUOTEVAR:CHILDSECTIONS_SECTIONIDS

There is a brief explanation within the template, but you could just experiment by uncommenting out parts until you find what works.

(This is based on V5 - which I'm in at the moment - but should be similar in V7 - its worth noting that V8 has an improved method for generating such lists)

[AndrewPK]

Right, Now we are getting somewhere

Using the "CHILDSECTIONS_RAW" & "TOPLEVELSECTIONS_RAW" thingamabobs I have managed to create 2 menus, one showing ALL the top level sections of the site, and one showing the child sections for the area your in!

HOWEVER this is not quite what I wanted to do, the Child section list needs to be just the first level of subsections from the main section, no matter how deep into that section you are

so if you went into the DJ & Karaoke section, the menus would show

ALL TOP LEVEL SECTIONS

then

All the 1st SUB LEVEL OF The DJ & Karaoke Section

even if you were 4 levels into the DJ & Karaoke section

Is there a way to get just the 1st level of sub sections?
I am guessing there is, as one of the forms of yahoo sections can show top level and 1st level of each section on your menu, but that uses the hideously large SECTIONTREE_RAW file and i don't want to use that if possible

I noticed something to do with NETQUOTEVAR:SECTIONLEVEL and wondered if this could be used to tell the child section to show level 1 on the sublevels?

any ideas folks

AndrewPK

[fleetwood]

Hi Andrew
I think that what you are after may be beyond the scope of this simple type of link list.
As you move deeper into the hiercarchy, it would be difficult to maintain a relationship between where you are, and the 1st level.
There is an obvious link with parent to child, but not so for level 4 back to parent or level2 for example.

Hopefully someone else can provide another option, but I can't see how you would do this without a script (which is beyond my knowledge).

[AndrewPK]

Hi Andrew
I think that what you are after may be beyond the scope of this simple type of link list.
As you move deeper into the hiercarchy, it would be difficult to maintain a relationship between where you are, and the 1st level.
There is an obvious link with parent to child, but not so for level 4 back to parent or level2 for example.

Hopefully someone else can provide another option, but I can't see how you would do this without a script (which is beyond my knowledge).

ahhh, was afraid someone was going to say that!
So does anybody out there have any other suggestions?

AndrewPK

PS.
Nice website there fleetwood (megacitycomics) might be looking into your graphic novels section shortly

[fleetwood]

I think you are back to looking at Normans scripted menus if you want something more compex (see top of thread) - my idea was trying to keep it simple, and fast for the browsers - you have to weigh up pros and cons of complexity and speed, against what you actually want to achieve. I prefer to stear clear of scripted menus if I can help it, as they can slow page rendering down in my opinion, and are less search engine friendly, but its up to you.

(Thanks about the site - thats 4 years old now - currently working on a revamp)

[AndrewPK]

yep, as I mentioned earlier, we used to have a scripted menu in there (nortree as i recall) but as our site got bigger it got stupidly slow to navigate using it,

The new menu is much faster, but doesn't give nearly enough ease of navigation

Because our top level sections are quite different from each other, we have found once people have gone into one top level section they generally stay in that one, and look around the sub sections,
I just wanted a way to show the subsections to make it easier to get around the area they are in

AndrewPK

[fleetwood]

If are thinking about upgrading to V8, you have the added functionality of conditional statements.

With these, you could define a varaible for each section, containing the name of the level 1 section you wanted it linked to.

You could then hand code a set of nav links for each level 1 section, and include a conditional statement to display the nav link box that relates to the section 1 variable for that section.

Its a lot of work compared with a script doing it for you, but does not suffer with the processing lag that a large scripted menu has, as all your navs are coded before upload.

(I hope this makes sense).

I am planning on implementing something along the lines with our new site, although that side of it will not be tackled for some time yet, and we are unlikley to be launching with that in place (too many other things to sort out first!).

If you need me to expand on this, please let me know.