You keep the main project in the root and place the five other projects in five subfolders.

Each of the five is independent parojects that each has their own index-file.

The projects are linked together via links.

Example:

In the main project you have a home page and then five other items in the head-menu- Each of these five menus are linked to the main page in each project. In the sub-projects you do not name the home page Home, but give it another name.

In the sub-projects you should have one of the main menu items have the name "Home" - and then let that point to the main projects home page.

If the projects have the same style then it will be rather seamless for a user - he/she will not see that it is actually 6 projects linked together.

BUT - if a user makes a site-search then the user will only see results for the project he/she is actually making the search from.

The first menu item in the sub-menus should be a kind of intro for the product group and the next menu item could be the "Home" that will get the user back to the main project.

The links that links the projects together can be made as levels.

So - The user will see the head menu when in the main project. When the user chooses a product category he will see the menu change to a menu for that category. It is importent that the style is exactly the same - so the sub projects should be copied from the main project. It is important that when changes is made afterwards in the haeder or so - that the changes are made exact the same in the other projects. If not, then it will not be a seamless experience for the users.

Thank you so much John.  Everything is backed up, and ready to try.  I'd prefer to try in a sandbox rather than live - but maybe on a sunday when traffic is low....

I have site search figured out I think - I use freefind (paid version) where you can set sublevels.... so should work. it crawls the site per the paths you define, and then it hosts the results - with an html link back to the "search" page on your site.

Your comment about the header is interesting - that is one area where X5 is not strong - ability to export/import a header does not seem possible?

A

Adrian. last time I needed to split a project I created an iwzip (step 5 export project) then restarted WX5 and selected import twice. I named the projects appropriately and deleted unrequired content/pages from each project ultimately tying the 2 togethers with levels added to each project. This process meant the headers/footers and style settings were identical across projects.

Thank you

I'm trying to understand the tying together part....  

I'm having trouble conceptualizing that

I sort of get having buttons, for example a product button that I have now (https://www.abthermal.com/thermal-abrasion-electrical-protection-product-selector-menu.html) - the first group: Sleeves / Tapes / Tadpole Gasket Tapes etc..... that would link to the other project levels like: www.abthermal.com/Sleeves, www.abthermal.com/Tapes... etc? but how do I link a page from those 2nd levels back?

Or is it as simple as the main buttons in the current header that are already there and displayed and those link to the main level.

In my case that may be all I need - is to change nothing in the header and that will tie it all together as it is?

Thinking this through, I believe I will have to edit each web page that is moved to a subdirectory as a result of splitting the project, as the Page Properties/Expert; custom code for the canonical path will have changed?

Adrian

More thinking...A 301 url redirect will need to be made for every page moved to a subdirectory.

Adrian, I believe you are overthinking the problem.

Have a play (these imported projects will not overwrite or impact you existing primary project).

You have 2 identical projects, you ensure that you delete half the content from each project. Each project is stand alone. It is just a matter of being able to link the projects through your standard menues using levels. Each level opens a specific page (using properties).

The user should see it as one single project unless they look at the URL.

I suggest you do the following:

Make a new project with 3 menu items.

Make 3 subfolders.

Put the "main" project in subfolder 1 and the 2 others in subfolder 3 and 4.

Then just imagine that the main project is in a folder and the 2 other projects is in sub-sub folders.

You could make sub-sub folders but it is not neccessary - it is not a question of levels - it is just a question of the projects not being in the same folder. It is all about linking the projects together.

When you have tested it on small projects it is exactly the same on big projects - smaller projects is just much easier to handle in tests.

One thing more: In the testing phase it will be easier to distinguish between the projects when you make a little "mark" in the footer so you can see what project you have on the screen.

Thank you Esahc and John. Much appreciate the comments.

Something to keep me busy this weekend..... :)