Links via java menu

Do the search engines 'see' them?

[balinor]

Boy have I learned a lot in the last few days I have been here! The question I have is if I have a site with a javascript menu navigation system, will the search engines pick up and follow the links? My script presently resides in a .js file in the root directory to allow the pages to load faster. If this is a problem, how do I get the spiders/bots/etc to 'see' the links without going back to including the .js in the actual .html file? Thanks in advance!

-Padraic

[jimbeetle]

Hi Padraic,

Welcome to WW.

Whether you include the js file in the doc or not most bots won't be able to read and follow the links. Your best bet is to make a site map page of simple html links.

Depending on the size of your site this can be one page or, for a large site, pages for each section of the site. If multiple pages be sure to link each one with plain html links.

Link to the site map page from your home page (or in the footer of each page) with a plain html link. The spiders will eat it up.

Jim

[pixel_juice]

Hi Padraic,

Search engines don't read javascript, and neither do visitors who disable javascript or are not running a typical web browser. You need to make sure that both visitors and search engines have flat html links to navigate your pages.

If you can't navigate your site with javascript disabled, then neither can search engines. A sitemap, as jimbeetle suggests, is the quickest and easiest way to ensure everyone can see links to the pages of your site, but it is also a good idea to make sure that if you use javascript to create links, your site does not rely completely on this in order to work.