Basically, I have this site that recently lost a lot of traffic after I optimized the html, the exact reasons to which are uncertain. The graph of impressions (times a page appears on search listings) is continuously going down like an e^-x function. Because the content, previously occupying five pages of tables, now fits within a few paragraph tags, the menu now occupies about 80% of the live html code and I am starting to have doubts wherether this affects the "similar pages" factor that Google punishes.
Questions:
As far as I know, Google ignores invisible material and the submenus are only visible when hovered over. Has anything at all changed in this area?
If I ajax in the submenus, leaving only the main eight menu items to load, will I be punished for "hiding" information?
Is the idea worth testing or is it frankly retarded?