internal site links within <noscript> tags

for those people who can't use javascript

[Andy_White]

Hi,

This is my first post here (I think) but I've read some very interesting threads and gained some useful information.

On sites that I've been designing I tend to use javascript/dhtml menus and then include a sitemap, which is how Google gets around.

But lately I've been adding in a textual menu on each page within <noscript></noscript> tags so that those people who don't have javascript will be able to navigate around the sites without having to use the sitemap.

Now I've read some stuff about hidden links and I was interested in what peoples opinions were about how google might or might not react to these.

From my point of view they are an alternative form of navigation but hidden from all with javascript. Google will see them which is good as long as it doesn't count them as hidden.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Andy

[WebGuerrilla]

Hi Andy,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld

As long as the links in your No Script tag are the same as the links that a JS enabled browser sees, you won't run into any problems.

[subway]

Andy, I found a site, which is incidently number one for an obcene amount of competitive keywords that has built a totally different spammed website within <noscript> </noscript> tags, subsequently the "spammed" site isn't visible to joe surfer unless you copy the code, remove the tags and then preview it.

Therefore I would say that for the mean time, google loves, reads and rewards anything within these tags.

[hutcheson]

>Therefore I would say that for the mean time, google loves, reads and rewards anything within these tags.

Yes. And the mean time ends -- forever -- when Google's QA people act on the report that, I trust, you've already sent them?

[lavapies]

The <no script> I have seen abused on numerous occasions, with companies (especially in my area unforunately, albeit predictably!) building entire spammy pages within these tags invisible to the majority of end users.

It is a very difficult issue to solve I think for the SEs. There are many perfectly legitimate reasons for including links and text within the tag, such as the one highlighted above. However, as they are becoming one of the 'trendy' ways of spamming the SEs, I wouldn't be surprised if some action was taken by the likes of the big G to combat such abuse.

I would say a few links (like WebG says copying ones that already exist on the page) would be OK, but expanding on that with many keywords in <H1> tags etc would be dangerous given the current climate towards abuse of the tag.

[Andy_White]

Thank you all for your input.
There are only links within my noscript tags which mirror those you would have if javascript was enabled,
and when javascript isn't enabled the noscript area effectively "sits over" where the javascript menu would have been.

So I'm not using it to cheat just to ensure everyone (including google) can get around the site whatever the state of their browser.

Hopefully it should all be okay until google get fed up with people spamming with noscript tags, maybe the chap from Google could gives us a heads up if and when that's likely to happen.