Will Google ever read .js files?

[WisdomSeeker]

OK, here is the situation. I have a site which has good PR and at the moment. I wish to include new links on the home page of the site but do not want Google to penalise the links which I think it will do. The links will make a valuable contribution to my site and are not bad neighborhoods in my eyes only Googles, etc. Google does get it wrong sometimes!

Normally I would put such links in a .js file and link it into a page but this is my most important site and I cannot ever afford to get a penalty on the homepage. It is my livelihood. Would it be safe to put the links in a .js file or is there a safer way?

Can anybody help? Surely Google must help webmasters out a little with this?

Thanks for all feedback.

WisdomSeeker

[jatar_k]

It would seem that the googlebot will read urls out of javascript (not too sure about external files) but it still can't read constructed urls.

I think the best way is too build the links with js so that even if it reads through the js it won't understand that they are even urls.

[kaled]

Surely Google would not penalise a site for simply having a readable url (in a script file) that points to a bad neighborhood. After all, you might simply be reviewing sites and stating that this is a bad'un.

Kaled.

[dmorison]

There have been several reports here of the googlebot agent requesting .js files.

[martinibuster]

I believe Matt Cutts stated (at the Boston pubconference) that Google can read a url in a js file but not follow it.

Similar in effect to listing a url in a webpage, but not making it hot. Google will still index the instance of that url, but not follow it.