Menus are the router, not just the navigation

Most content systems treat navigation as a list of links pointing at pages that exist independently. Joomla works the other way round: the menu item is the page's configuration.

What one menu item controls

• The URL. The path comes from the menu item's alias and its place in the tree, not from the article.
• The template. Every item can use a different template style, which is how one Joomla install runs two looks.
• The layout options. How many articles, in how many columns, with which fields shown. Set per item, overriding the component defaults.
• The modules. Module assignment is per menu item, so a sidebar can appear on one section and not another.

The consequence

Content that no menu item reaches falls back to an unconfigured, ugly URL and the component's default layout. If a section of your site looks wrong and nothing you change in the article helps, check whether it has a menu item at all.

Hidden menus solve this. Make a menu, do not publish a module for it, and put items in it for the pages that need a home but not a place in the navigation.

Planning

• Sketch the structure before you make a single item. Renaming later means changing URLs.
• Three levels is the practical limit. Deeper than that and neither visitors nor your template will cope.
• Name items for what a visitor is looking for, not for how the organisation is arranged. "Prices" beats "Our propositions".
• Keep the top level short. Every item you add makes the others harder to see.

One habit

Set the alias by hand on anything important. Left alone it is generated from the title, and the day someone rewrites the title for clarity, the URL changes with it.