I have a client who is migrating to Dotnetnuke, but they a very untraditional menu structure and sitemap setup. Basically, they have pages set up in a physical structure of Root 1 with Child1 and Root2 with Child2, etc. But, on the menu, they use Child1 as the root level and then place Root2 on that level as well, so they are pulling root and child pages onto one root level for the menu. Then, on their site map, they place everything in a third entirely different structure that follows a better organized outline than the menu or the actual physical directory and file structure.
They want to be able to retain this ala carte type setup for the menu and sitemap and maintain all the the physical page name and directory structures for the actual url's.
I'm planning on using DNN360.net's Navigation Suite so search engines can easily read the links in the menu without relying on links at the bottom of the content. In order to maintain their setup for the physical location of files, the secondary structure for the menu, and the third structure for the sitemap, I thought an approach might be to set up the structure as they have it, but uncheck the box for "include in menu" to hide some of the root items that appear on child menus, and to add "dummy" pages in the root that are set up to link directly to the child pages they want to appear on the root. Those child pages would be children of the root level items that are "hidden."
So, with their Root1, Child1, Root2, Child2 setup: Root1 stays as is, Root2 is hidden. Child1 stays as Child of Root1. I create DummyPage1 and place it on the root and set it to link to Child2. They would definitely end up with the same menu structure and the same underlying url's as well.
The question is, will search engines know that we have these so-called dummy pages set up and that they link to pages that are children of hidden pages? Is this going to cause any problems with search engines, will search engines see this dnn setup any differently than what they currently have set up on the existing site? I mean, if we aren't checking the box for "301 permanent redirect" on the dummy page, it's just going to insert the url in the menu as though it were the actual page right? The search engine won't see that link in the menu any differently than a page that isn't a link to another page? Or will this end up killing their place in the number 3 slot on search results? Or, even better, would their search results actually improve if they followed a more strict outline structure for their main menu that matches the underlying physical structure as well as corresponding the site map to report the exact same structure as well?
I guess I would expect that they would be penalized for not having a consistent structure reported throughout the website, that there would be a loss in rank from having three different hierarchy structures for the pages on their site. But, the client says they have worked diligently for years to tweak their rankings and finally reached this setup and got the best results. Seems completely the opposite of what one would expect when search engines reportedly don't like to be "tricked" like this.
Anyone have suggestions or advice for this?