Google Isn't Picking Up Links in noscript

Pages aren't being found.

[Sweeets]

Hi

I wonder if anyone can help...

A client has a hotels website which is built in frames (I know it's bad but the client won't rebuild). The main booking engine is accessed by an iFrame. Because there was no copy on the site at all, we have created thousands of content pages, linked to via sitemaps (www.example.co.uk/hotels/sitemap_hotels_in.html etc etc). At these sitemaps are lots of pages, written around the destinations and optimised for hotels in *** / **** hotels etc etc. This isn't my only strategy... other SEO is also taking place.

The links to the three sitemaps are in the noscript on the main homepage (on the main frame), but, despite the fact that i know Google has visited the source code and has cached the info in the noscript, it is not listing the links to sitemaps, and hence not finding the pages.

Can anyone shed any light?

Thanks

[edited by: ciml at 2:02 pm (utc) on May 9, 2005]
[edit reason] Examplified [/edit]

[mrMister]

despite the fact that i know Google has visited the source code and has cached the info in the noscript, it is not listing the links to sitemaps

How long ago was that. You'll have to wait at least a month before you can be sure that Googlebot hasn't seen them.

[glengara]

Not my forte so... but should you not be using noframes tags?

[mrMister]

Not my forte so... but should you not be using noframes tags?

I expect he only wants search engines to visit these pages, not users, so noscript should be just as good.

To the original poster, you do need real javascript on that page as well. A search engine might not follow noscript tags if there isn't any script code on the page.

[glengara]

*..only wants search engines to visit these pages..*

I see.....must say it doesn't appeal to me, as if working in that sector isn't "complicated" enough ;-)

[mrMister]

I see.....must say it doesn't appeal to me, as if working in that sector isn't "complicated" enough

In that sector, they key is to use a lot of offline-based marketing.

I've worked on a few sites in this sector and offline branding is the key.

[jimbeetle]

The links to the three sitemaps are in the noscript on the main homepage

Going back to the very beginning and thinking about your users first--and not the SEs--how the heck are they supposed to find your site map if the link is hidden from their view?

Put it out in the open where your users can see it. Though your site navigation might be intuitive to you and your client, different visitors find things different ways. A good site map or series of site maps can come in handy.

Heck, put a link to it in the footer of each page. That way it will be handy to your visitors--and SEs!

[Philosopher]

I had to use some noscript with links in it about a year and half ago for a project and ran into the same issue.

I left it up for about 4 months and pages linked to by the links within the noscript tag were NEVER indexed.