Homepage had 312 links. Cut to 90. Money pages jumped.

Homepage had 312 links. Cut to 90. Money pages jumped.

Mega-menu monster. The homepage linked to 312 URLs — every category, sub-category, and a footer sitemap. PageRank was spread so thin nothing got priority.

Move:
— Pruned the mega-menu to top 8 categories
— Killed the footer link-dump (moved to an HTML sitemap page, one link from footer)
— Featured 12 priority landing pages on the homepage body

7 weeks: the 12 featured pages averaged +9 positions. Categories I cut from the menu? Mostly held — they get links from the relevant category hubs anyway.

Watch the orphan risk. Anything you pull from the menu needs a link from somewhere relevant, or it goes dark.