On our website (r u g g e d r a d i o s . c o m), we are using a vertical side menu to shop for specific products. Then we're using a horizontal menu to select specific "areas of interest" where a mix of products are grouped to make it easier for a consumer to find specific products related to their sport.

In order to keep our left menu focused on products and allow the horizontal menu to focus on "areas of interest", I had to DISABLE certain categories so they wouldn't display on the left side, but I left the individual product status within those as ENABLED, so that they are live, linkable, and being linked TO from my top HORIZONTAL menu.

So — The problem is: These DISABLED categories don’t show up on a site map.

I HAVE THREE QUESTIONS
1) How can I get these to show on sitemap but not the vertical side menu?

2) Although I think I know the answer, does the approach I’ve used hurt SEO even though product pages are live, viewable and being linked to from my top horizontal menu?

3) IDEALLY, Because of a specialized custom modification we've done on our product listing pages - I would love to have those select categories enabled, but just hide them from the side menu.


Hopefully the pics help you visualize the problem...

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