Creating Stand-alone page for Site Nav Menu (and removing traditional menu)

[No5needinput]

I was just browsing a popular U.S. .GOV website (on a desktop computer) and noticed their menu icon/hamburger when clicked on opened a separate page containing the site menu. I was thinking that by having the menu on its own page this would save a LOT of menu related css, html markup, possible javascript, menu links etc. - especially with mega-menus, being loaded on each page load, maybe even increase the focus topic of the page? Those maybe are the pro's, is anyone else doing this? Or can anyone suggest the con's against doing the same? Yes I know, just because a .gov site does it... and obviously each page would still have a link to "Home".

I actually do a similar method with contact, about, privacy, terms etc. where I have a link, and icon, top and bottom of each page labeled "Reference Desk" which links to a standalone page containing a list of links to those sections. Been doing it that way for years and have had no problems.

Interested in hearing others views regarding the menu idea...

[aakk9999]

This is interesting idea and may work well on the mobile, especially with mega menus. You could perhaps try with a page or two (or a section of the web site), removing navigation and placing it on the separate page and then monitoring if there is any negative (or positive) effect on ranking.

What would you do on the desktop version? Are you saying you would not have navigation visible at all and that instead there would be hamburger menu which user has to click to see the menu? I am not sure this would be the best idea for desktop not just because of usability (no way of quickly scanning main nav to see what the site can do for me), but it may also cause problem in how Googlebot understands the page as the siloing through internal inlinks and outlinks would be lost.

[No5needinput]

Mods have permitted posting of a link to the site which is [ssa.gov ]

Good idea aakk9999 with the testing on a small section of the site first. My site is information/news based, and I link (internally) in a similar fashion as Wikipedia's in text links (On a much smaller scale) so the "silo" effect shouldn't be a problem? I do use directory breadcrumbs on article pages, and all category pages have a sidebar list of above/below sub-directories.

Not sure if I'll try it yet, just thought the concept was interesting - especially in the saving of page code loading.

[robzilla]

I think one the main advantages of (and probably a big motivation behind) their approach is accessibility, which is no doubt a priority for the US Social Security Administration website. Having the menu on a separate page, and reducing bloat on all other pages, may make them all easier to interpret for the blind, for example. And it doesn't require JS or a modern browser.

[No5needinput]

Interesting you should mention that. My site is also aimed at people who require a good degree of accessibility...

[bakedjake]

It's the 2016 version of a well made site map. I think it's a good idea. I really like the idea of using the full screen for a transition action like that - I think it helps the user focus on what they want to do.

Another place I see this technique used (but for a different purpose) is on the New York Times website. If you click into an article on your phone and start scrolling, you'll see the header changes and an elipsis (...) button appears. That opens a full screen menu with all of their social sharing buttons. It is very clear what to do - and it declutters the website by not having all of those buttons all over the place. It's not a separate page but the idea is the same.

[lucy24]

And it doesn't require JS or a modern browser.

Depends what you mean by "require". I looked in Camino and then in Firefox; there are vast areas of the front page-- including most links-- that only become visible in Firefox. There would presumably have been still more, only "Firefox has prevented the outdated* plugin 'Adobe Flash' from running" et cetera. Yes, the difference continues on the "menu" page; Camino only displays the twelve items in the first column. (It isn't a JS issue.)

I think the only reason they call it Menu instead of Sitemap is that the average human doesn't know what a sitemap is and wouldn't think to click on it.


* I would dearly love to think this means FF thinks Flash is outdated, full stop. But I think it really only means that I've been ignoring this week's update reminder.

[Robert Charlton]

Just a note to kick this up, because there are some thoughts I've wanted to add, and I haven't had a chance to do so. I think there's a lot more here than what's been discussed.

[aristotle]

On one of my sites, I've had a "See All Topics" page for years. It's simply a list of links to all of the articles on the site.

The other pages on the site have a "Related Topics" section at the end of the main article, with links to five or six of the most closely related articles, plus a link to the "See All Topics" page.

So it provides a convenient way for a visitor to see a list of all the articles in one place.

[aristotle]

P.S. You should probably put a noindex tag on these types of pages in most cases. But don't nofollow the links, because you want the pagerank juice to flow back into the rest of the site.