Daniweb navigation issues

I'm sorry, I don't care enough to read all that. Do you have an executive summary?

Summary: Are there too many forums? Does DaniWeb try to cover too much? What would make the site feel more organized and intuitive? What do you think of the multi-color idea for each forum category, following the theme of having lots of mini-sites?

Thanks Dani!

Well, it is getting a bit complicated. There are an awful lot of levels to the site, but if they're all attracting the requisite number of visitors then I don't see a problem.

I'm not sure I'm a fan of the colors - the original daniweb colors just go together too well I guess.

Our trademark colors are still dark blue, llight blue, and purple - as demonstrated by our homepage, forum index, and logo. The idea was to use a different color for the navigation for each of our sections to help navigation, as well as demonstrate the idea that each category is like a sub-site ... enough of me reiterating! ;) read the chat log, everything is explained in there in much greater detail than I could repeat :)

I miss this little feature:
[IMG]http://img198.exs.cx/img198/6823/forumjump2fw.jpg[/IMG]
It gives a bit of an "Explorer" ability.
[IMG]http://img205.exs.cx/img205/7894/devshed8sy.th.jpg[/IMG]

Our trademark colors are still dark blue, llight blue, and purple - as demonstrated by our homepage, forum index, and logo. The idea was to use a different color for the navigation for each of our sections to help navigation, as well as demonstrate the idea that each category is like a sub-site ... enough of me reiterating! ;) read the chat log, everything is explained in there in much greater detail than I could repeat :)

i think you've done a perfect job with the navigation, i never have a problem with it. in fact i love this layout, it makes it easier to find what i need to do.

the only issue is the Web Development and INternet resources, could be seen as one in the same by someone new to this new technology thing!

Dave, do you really miss the forum jump? DaniWeb has about two hundred forums and subforums, and I can't see a jump thingie being very handy when the list is 200 elements long. Another reason why I got rid of it (and this was the biggy) was for search engine optimization reasons ... a forum jump that is 200 elements long adds just such an incredible amount of jargon HTML code to every page of the site, which significantly dilutes google's ranking for "good" terms on the page. For example, suppose a particular thread is about C++ linked lists. Half of the HTML code to generate the page would make up the jump navigation, with forum titles for 200 different computer related terms. The significant words on the page - those that are related to C++ linked lists - are now significantly diluted, as half the weight is shifted to these random computer terms aka forum names. This is a very important consideration because nearly all of our traffic originates from a Google search, and it could be devastating to our traffic if the google search results were a lot less targeted because of the forum jump. The bandwidth issue was also taken into consideration when choosing to remove this feature. In fact, in the vBulletin options page where you can choose to enable or disable the forum jump menu, it says, If you have a lot of forums you may want to disable the Forum Jump menu, although it makes only a marginal performance hit, it can generate a large amount of HTML.

As far as the Web Development vs Internet Marketing & Resources confusion ... I'm up for suggestions. I think it's pretty self explanatory since web development consists of actually developing scripts and working with databases ... while Internet marketing is self explanatory and the word "resources" from Internet resources means other, external, resources on the web - such as places to find things like web hosting or a web designer. I guess the only confusion is that web hosting and web design can also be done in-house. Are there any other words that would be a better replacement for "resources"?

Sorry to double post ... but I just thought of something. What about Site Management?

>DaniWeb has about two hundred forums and subforums

Whee. Well I do know one thing: I found this post somehow without navigating, and I couldn't find it later when I tried -- I needed to search where I had posted to find this thread again.

I like the Forum Jump, but that's not my call.

[edit]
I have been using my browser's address history to go to places like "Who's Online" since you got rid of the jump.
[/edit]

My only other suggestion is to group things in part by post frequency. If there are big gaps between posts in a particular forum, it might be better packaged with something else.

People may arrive via a specific hit on Google. But people don't stick around in dead forums. There needs to be activity to keep people coming back.

Slow forums might be combined with others that are somewhat related. Forums with a lot of posting can be split into more detailed groups. And it is probably something that will change with time, too.

>What about Site Management?

You mean just having the Forum Jump for selected forums and subforums?

I guess now the forum jump is just a matter of whether it's heavily used enough to sacrifice the SEO a bit. Any other opinions?

I just noticed it's back! I was able to navigate to this forum!

Yup :) As you may or may not know, I'm doing a complete redesign of DaniWeb behind the scenes (it will be released soon!) And in doing so, I've decided to put back the forum jump. So you guys will enjoy it in the new version of DaniWeb, as well ;)