If your site is on version 7.0, dropdowns and index pages look similar in the Pages panel, though their functionality and appearance on your site will be very different. This guide covers the primary differences, best practices, and other things to consider when adding a dropdown or an index page to your site.

These are the basics:

• Dropdowns create drop-down menus in your navigation. Available in all templates.
• Index pages create a unique page on your site that displays content from multiple pages. Available in some version 7.0 templates.

This guide is for version 7.0. Version 7.1 doesn't support index pages, but you can get effects similar to index pages using page sections or portfolio pages.

Before you begin

• It’s not possible to put index pages within dropdowns or put dropdowns within index pages.
• It's not possible to put index pages within index pages or dropdowns within dropdowns.
• Switching templates can sometimes cause index pages to convert to dropdowns and dropdowns to convert to index pages. Visit Switching templates FAQ for more information.

Dropdowns

Dropdowns are primarily used for creating drop-down menus in your navigation. This can be helpful if you want to group related pages together, minimize links in a navigation menu, or give your visitors quick access to the pages on your site. Dropdowns are an organization tool—they don't create a new page on your site.

Dropdown styles vary between templates. Some templates have style options to set the background color of the menu, choose whether it displays a + icon, and use different colors or fonts for sub-pages.

Dropdown functionality also varies. In some templates, the menu opens on hover, and clicking the dropdown name takes you to the first page in the dropdown. In other templates, clicking the dropdown name opens the drop-down menu.

To learn more, visit Dropdown display by template.

Here's how a dropdown looks in the Pages panel of the Five template:

Here's how the dropdown looks to visitors on the Five template:

Index pages

Index pages are powerful design features that create a unique page on your site. index pages collect content from different pages, creating a landing page where visitors can browse your site's content. Clicking an index page link in the navigation leads to the index page itself.

Index pages look different in every template that supports them. Depending on your template, the content will be arranged as a grid of images, a scrolling page of stacked sections, or a full-screen slideshow. It may also create a drop-down menu in your navigation.

Index page are useful as landing pages for more pages, such as a portfolio for galleries or projects. You can also use index pages to organize similar content in one place. It's common to set an index page as the homepage.

To learn more, visit Index pages in version 7.0.

Here's how an index page looks in the Pages panel of the Avenue template. The page icon may look different from the image shown here, depending on your template's index page style:

Here's how the index page looks to visitors on the Avenue template:

Should I use a dropdown or an index page?

It’s best to use dropdowns to organize drop-down navigation menus and index pages to create a compelling overview of your content.

We recommend trying both options to determine which one works best for your site.