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If JavaScript bothered Googlebot there would only be about 2 sites in the Google index!
Seriously; there shouldn't be any problem. Stick to the standards and you'll be fine.
That would be nice... we wouldn't have to wait that long for the monthly update :))
C) Site Design:
"...Stay away from heavy: flash, dom, java, java script. Go external with scripting languages if you must have them - there is little reason to have them that I can see - they will rarely help a site and stand to hurt it greatly due to many factors most people don't appreciate (search engines distaste for js is just one of them)...."
The search engine reason for the comments you quoted about Site Design is that you want your relevant text as high in the HTML as possible. The belief has always been that Search Engines give more weight to text higher in the HTML.
All my sites have the javascript in remote files (with a few exceptions, where I wasn't sure if I could put it off the page or not). My pages do very well in Google and INK.
MY business partner did a site recently with lots of js on page as well as other junk in the html. It scored horribly on its first addition to Google. We've cleaned it up, and we are waiting for the update.
Frankly, I don't know for sure if my ultra-clean html is why I score so well. But it certainly can't hurt, and I think it probably does help.
One more thing... using js won't cause you to get penalized. It just junks up your code if overused.
They are right, avoid JavaScript around the head and body tags. The "email a friend" and / or "bookmark us - add us to your favorites" can be done with cgiscripts as well, and there are Javascript version to do this where you simply place all (and not much) of the JavaScript where you need it.
I actually believe, if you do both email and bookmark, and make one lean JavaScript and the other a cgi, you can use these to actually get additional SE brownie points.
