I am new here, but I'm going to give this a shot. I believe what
you are looking for is this:

From the top level portal  page, click Change Settings in your action
bar. When settings opens, select the "display" tab. Set the
Navigation and Sort order to "Sort Manually". Click "OK".

Next, go to "Manage Portal Site" on your action bar. You should be
able to drag and drop your areas  to the oder you want them.

Changing the sort order at the top level does not apply to lower
levels. To sort sub-areas manually, follow the same steps, but
begin within the area.

Use the View Site Hierarchy page, which is *not* exposed in the UI of the portal, but is available when invoked. I assume you’re talking about 2003………

but can you tell me how to invoke the View Site
Hierarchy Page? I trying to get a handle on what sites are on our
portals.

can you advise as to how to invoke the View Site Hierarchy Page
in SPS 2003? I would like to be able to get a look at our sites in our
portal environments.

Grab the URL from a team site, then remove the managed path portion of
the URL. That should work.