Click-down menus - Is the text read by search engines

[AEF]

Hello all - We are all aware that when adding new keywords to your keyword meta tag - you have to make sure that the keyword is included in the HTML text of the page as well as the keyword meta tags so the search engines pick up on your page as relevant for that specific key word. Well - what about when the keyword you are interested in adding to your meta tag is not on the HTML page text - but rather the click-down menu on that page - what do you think - are search engine spiders able to read the text on the click-down menus.
In other words - is it worth adding the keyword to your tags if it is only found on the click-down menu of the page?
Let me know what you think!
Thanks so much!!

[WebRookie]

Hello AEF, welcome to the forums.

I've used a spider simulator tool and the results showed our site's drop down menu was spidered. The words from the drop down list appear on our page as well. The keywords meta tag is not as important as it used to be for ranking.

Here's a link to Brett's Search Engine Spider Simulator, try using it on your site to see spidering results:

[searchengineworld.com...]

I'm not sure this keyword method would help in terms of ranking. Anyone else have experiences with improvement this way?

Enjoy the forums, I've found everyone here to be very supportive and friendly.

[AEF]

Thanks so much WebRookie -
I find these forums to be extremely helpful as well.
regards,
AEF

[Brett_Tabke]

Many engines DO read the text, but NOT all. Google does, Fast does, ink(?) at the moment I am unsure (steve?), Alta does but gives very little weight, Excite does.

I do have the simulator setup to read them. I could have gone either way.