Google indexing via option drop lists

Has anyone else seen this?

[moishier]

I have a few hundred pages indexed that are only linked via a simple html option drop list.

Has anyone else seen this? Does googlebot submit to option forms?

[ThomasB]

GB follows everything that looks like an URL. If you have sth like "http://www.site.com/great-content.html" in your sourcecode it's very likely that GB will follow it.

[moishier]

There are no url's in the option form code!

[dotme]

But presumably there *is* a URL in the <form> tag, yes?

If the form POSTs to a page and that URL is in the form tag, Google may follow it. However, I would be surprised if Google could actually POST to the form target using drop-down variables.

If you don't want Google to index the page the form posts to, maybe do a redirect if the <option> value is missing?

Just a thought :-)

[moishier]

That is what seems to be happening.

Has anyone else seen Google do this, to take the URL from the form tag, and POST to the options in the list?

[yetanotheruser]

Hi moishier,

Do you have access to your logs? Presumably if it is following your <OPTION>'s there should be the relevant POST's in your log under 'Googlebots' useragent.. Personally never seen google POSTing forms but..

TTFN :)