Javascript Navigation Menu Causing Ranking Problems?

[internetheaven]

I have a drop down menu that links out to our most popular articles, there are around 70 of them. I put descriptive keywords for each and when any is selected and the button is clicked the user is taken to that article. I just looked at the cache Google has of that page and instead of the neat navigation box at the top, the whole page is pushed down and the top 3/4 of the page is simply a list of article keyword links e.g.:

---- Please select an article ----

----------------------------------
MAIN ARTICLE CATEGORY 1
----------------------------------
first article on something
another article
even more articles
definately another article
more articles for you

----------------------------------
MAIN ARTICLE CATEGORY 2
----------------------------------
first article on something
another article
even more articles
definately another article
more articles for you

----------------------------------
MAIN ARTICLE CATEGORY 1
----------------------------------
first article on something
another article
...

etc. etc. - none of which are linked because the links are javascript based. Could this bunch of short keywords and excessive -----'s filling the top space of my page be causing some sort of filter to be tripped? Rankings are much lower than expected based on the number of backlinks and other ranking factors compared to those above me.

Anyone know how to put the whole thing in javascript so Google can't see it or would that not make a difference anymore?

Thanks
Mike

[CTHines]

I use flash alot, cant/wont stop and that caused me to not gain any rank for 2 years (spiders cant follow flash or java) So within the last 2 months I have added href link navigation to the bottom added a site index page as well as resubmit the updates via a new sitemap to google. I have not gained any PR but at least google see's my pages, all of them. I have also been utilising swfobject2 and creating a static page that does 2 things it helps if someone doesnt have flash so they have something to view and it allows the spiders something to nible on.

[internetheaven]

Ummm ... thanks for your story CTHines. Care to make any comments about whether Google penalises keyword lists like the one I demonstrated above?

[tedster]

Can you tell us a bit more detail about what "javascript based" mreans, technically? That's a rather generic description to give input with any certainty.

It's not true any more that Google simply ignores javascript. Googlebot is also submitting various types of forms - select boxes, site searches, radio buttons - all actions that used to be off-limits to googlebot.

Depending on your technical approach, this list of 70 articles might well be creating a problem right now - or it might be completely safe. The easiest way I know to be really safe is to take the javascript into an off-page .js file, or even swithc to some server-side scripting language, rather than showing it inline. We've done this in several similar situations where we didn't want to muddy the relevance signals by using the same long list on every page, and it worked quite well.

[tedster]

whether Google penalises keyword lists like the one I demonstrated above?

You can run bang into the -950 penalty - phrase based spam detection.

[internetheaven]

You can run bang into the -950 penalty - phrase based spam detection.

Well, sounds like I'm okay so far. But whereas all my other sites with similar "value" (backlinks, articles, structure etc.) all rank in the top 10 for their phrases, this site has been plagued with poor rankings from the 80s to the 250s.

Is there a specific UK filter because this site ranks No.4 on Google.com but fails to rank on Google.co.uk - that's what's really confusing me. Could the UK "phrase spam filter" dial you suggested be turned up much higher for UK searches?

Thanks
Mike