Google "Tab" indexing?

Getting Google to index multiple tabs of a single page

[bblgoose]

Not sure if this is the right group, but there seem to be plenty of Google-related queries here, so it seems as good a place as any :-)

Short version: Can anyone confirm whether Google will index content on invisible DHTML layers, such as would be seen when using tabs?

Longer version: My site will probably operate 3-4 DHTML tabs to a topic page, none of which carry a huge amount of content, but the content they will carry will be relevant. I'd prefer to avoid Google indexing each topic more than once, so I want to try and get everything onto a single page if possible (I know there are other ways, but this is a dynamically generated page, so robots.txt is going to be virtually impossible to maintain). The obvious way to do this is using layers, but I suspect that Google will ignore any invisible layers. Am I right?

[encyclo]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com] bblgoose.

Googlebot generally doesn't read Javascript (DHTML) but it will parse the underlying HTML, so you need to look at how the content is presented in the source code of your page. For example, if you content is held within 3 or 4 blocks (ie. paragraphs or tables) and the Javascript hides all but the appropriate one, then if you switch off the Javascript the content will appear one section after the other on the screen. That is how Googlebot will see it too.

It is a good idea to install a text-mode browser such as Lynx to test your site, as it gives a good impression of what a search engine spider will "see".

[bblgoose]

Thanks for that Encyclo. Lynx is a good idea - I'll give that a go. Armed with that knowledge, I should be able to knock up something that looks about right while still letting the Googlebot get it's fix :-)

Thanks again

Tim

[decaff]

"...The obvious way to do this is using layers, but I suspect that Google will ignore any invisible layers. Am I right?..."

They may not ignore "invisible layers" .. but may penalize you instead... Layers have been heavily abused on the "spam" side of the equation...I would be very careful with any attributes embedded in a layers tag...and make sure you don't use negative pixel values...to hide the layer off screen..

You may need to create a compehensive static site map to make sure that Google finds all your 3-4 DHTML "tabbed" pages as individual content pages...(if this is your intent?)