There are thousands of ways to structure a site’s global navigation. Web Design Toronto professionals have classified Header menus into two types – single bar navigation & drop-down navigation. Choosing the better one requires comprehensive knowledge of both these navigation styles. So in this article, we are going to have extensive knowledge about single bar navigation:
- No threat to link equity dilution.
- No such issues as duplicate content.
- No over interlinking
- No harmful impact on user experience
- No distraction from the flight search initiation process
Which Menu Is Better – Mega Menu Or Lean Menu? Mega menus are best only if you have a large site like Amazon. Clicking on the mega menu shows a drop-down interface. All the options related to the particular category show up.
Mega menus are helpful for the user to get deep insights into the site with a few clicks. But if there were so many links in the navigation menu, it would be prejudicial for users & search engines. Here are some of the disadvantages of SEO:
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Link equity will suffer
As per Page Rank, the value of a page is judged based on the links you give to it. If you are overdoing the links, you’ll suffer.
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Duplicate Content Issues
Sometimes, overlinking can cause duplicate content issues.
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Duplicate Linking To The Same Pages
There are significant chances for content duplicacy issues to occur when you have mega menus.
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Crawlers May Face Issues
Usually, the drop-down menus are coded in JavaScript, and crawlers find it difficult to crawl javascript encoded pages.
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Bad User Experience
Some experiments may fail, while others may pass. If the drop-down design fails, then it will account for the bad user experience. Some go terribly wrong & end up causing a terrible user experience.
Coming To The Next Question,
‘Can Mega Menus Affect SEO?’
Well, this is an interesting question. There are brilliant sites like amazon, which have mega menus, but they are doing very well in the search engine. But there are other sites as well, which were earlier ranking on google, but from the moment they changed their navigation, their ranking dropped. There could be many reasons for this:
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When Navigation Strategy Is Not Good
There are certain things we need to follow to get the navigation right. If any flaw in strategy formulation or implementation comes out, the user experience will suffer and google does not like websites with poor user experience. Consequently, your rankings will suffer.
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Extremely Vast Mega Menu
If your mega menu strategy is vast, and you have more than ten menus, each with more than ten options, your navigation strategy will be a colossal failure.
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Duplicate Content Issues
Usually, website owners include black hat SEO tactics in Mega Menu. Many of their links refer to the different URLs having the same content. Google crawlers are smart enough to detect the original content.
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Structurization Issues
Mega menus can only be successful with a proper structure. A good structure can only be established if a web developer coordinates with an SEO executive.
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Orphaned Pages & Content
If you have been doing a monthly audit, you’ll come to know if there are any orphaned pages on the websites. Such pages should be paid special attention to.
Next Question:
“What If I Want To Use Many Options In The Mega Menu?”
In that case, you can make use of hub pages & categories.
Which Kind Of Menu Is The Best?
Usually, the classic site menu is the best. Here, the main focus is always on the primary categories. The user will not be redirected to a specific URL. For example, The ‘services’ menu will direct the users to the URL containing all the services.
Are There Any Other Navigation Options?
Yes, there are various other navigation options. To add the extra navigation links, you can make use of footers. But there are certain things we must focus on, like; you must not leave endless scrolling for the users; otherwise, they won’t be able to reach the footer to go through the links.
Any advice?
We would love to help you with the best piece of advice – Try to keep the navigation as small & clutter-free as you can. It will not only benefit the users but also help you with the boosted rankings.
Note: This advice is invalid if you have a large site like Amazon or Flipkart. Besides, eCommerce websites usually have extensive navigation because their product categories are generally significant.
Final Comments!
Mega menus are suitable for big websites that have large categories to offer. If your website belongs to a particular niche, it would be best to use simple navigation.
This article was aimed to answer the question, “Should I use mega menus for my website?” I hope it offered comprehensive information for those who had queries regarding the particular topic.
