How to find pages/topics on this website

This has always been an issue, whether to implement a site-search or to develop a menu system that allows the visitor to find what they are looking for. Both cases assume that the visitor knows what they are looking for. Someone who finds one of my pages may be satisfied with what they find, others may wonder what the site is all about.

I decided against a site search as it was not something that I wanted to spend a lot of time developing for functionality that is best left to efforts in getting search engines to do the work for me. In fact, the SEO would have to be performed on the site in any case.

Menu System

Over the years I have been developing various menu systems with a goal to make the navigation of websites as clear as possible.

The menu used on this website is probably more complex than it needs to be. My Home Page is an example of the menu in its "full" form. The menu on my History Timeline is also an example of the menu in its "full" format. On most pages the menus are somewhat simpler.

What I have tried to do on the "History Menus" is to create links to various parts of the history timeline.

The menus on most pages are much simpler in that they are usually just a single expandable dropdown from the top menu. The index and special pages such as the timeline have multiple dropdowns.