Pulldown menus with lots of internal links

pulldown menus

[AvalonJean]

I have four javascript jump menus at the top of my pages (they used to be way down the page) that let readers quickly go to any of the pages on the site- each pulldown menu has completely different links (30-40 per pulldown) to completely different pages. Each page has unique content. There are a few graphics and alt tags above the jump menus on the page, and just after them an H1 with my keywords and a paragraph with my keywords right after the H1.

I get a lot of positive feedback from readers that it's easy to find things on my site because of these jump menus. But....

My question is, what do the experts on this forum think these menus might do to my PR? I am #2 in my category and am worrying that by moving the pulldown menus to the top of the page where they are seen first by the spider, it might change the way the page is ranked. Thanks. :)

[jdMorgan]

javascript jump menus

If these are pure Javascript links, then Google won't see them at all, except as padding - They just push your spiderable content down on the page, and dilute its value. Because of their large size, you might consider using "the table trick" to get around the problem, if possible. If you're not familiar with it, a WebmasterWorld site search should turn up some useful info.

Alternatively, using absolutely-positioned <div>s and CSS might help in a similar way, but that's a whole different forum. ;)

HTH,
Jim

[buckworks]

An approach worth considering would be to move the pulldown menus into external javascript files. Then the spiders would only see a few small code snippets -- the links to the external files -- before they got to the meat of your page. That would give the same functionality with less code clutter for spiders to wade through.

Bonus: If you use the same menu(s) on more than one page, maintenance will be easier because you only have to make updates in one place. As well, once the external files have loaded for the first page view, subsequent pages will load more quickly because the browser can pull them from cache.

Be sure that your site has adequate alternate navigation outside the drop menus so that search engine spiders -- or someone surfing with javascript turned off -- could reach all your pages.

[bluecorr]

Can decreasing the amount of html and JS in the file and pushing up content all the way up in the page have a noticeable effect in serps? (considering you're doing all the other right things like content rich, good anchor text, h1-h3 etc)