Spiders and Dynamic content?

[talon39]

If I add dynamic content to my webpage like ebay listings. Will the search engines be able to read that content? With the scripts I'm using the URL is SE friendly and the content looks good, but if you view the source Where the ebay listing appear you just see a Javascript like
<script language="JavaScript" src="http://lapi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EKServer&ai=mvrw%7cd%60c%...."> </script>
Can the spider actually read these listings as page content or are they just ignored? :confused:

Added: Opps perhaps this should be moved to the Dynamic help forum?

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

Yes, it probably better belong in the dynamic forum - but we can move it later :)

To answer the question: What you see is what you get - or ¨rather THEY get. Generally speaker spiders won't execute client side code such as JavaScript - they may look into the code to see if they can dig out something valuable such as full links, but other then that they usually don't do anything.

If you want spiders to read such dynamically driven content you need to include it server-side so what you return to users, and spiders, is embedded in the HTML and readable without any further execution. eBay specifically have a rather extensive and advanced API for that you can use for this, but off course, it takes far more programming skills than a simple insert of JavaScript - so you need real programmers :)

[talon39]

Thanks. You wouldn't happen to know of any good ebay scripts that can display the ebay API in a spider friendly way would you? Or perhaps a script that can work with the existing script to convert the pages?

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

An API is not like "just a script" - you need a programmer to implement a solution for you based on your neeeds. And API is basically just a standard or how to communicate with a system - it dosen't do anything on it's own.

Also, you can't convert your current client side JavaScript to a server side code. It's two very different things

[talon39]

Appearantly I worded my question all wrong because that's not what I meant. There exist many prewritten scripts that use the ebay API to retrieve listings. Would you happen to know of one of these scripts that is search engine friendly or a way to modify an existing script such as the one I described in my initial post, so that it will display the listings in a way that the spiders can read?

Man I hope I said it right that time. lol

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

I would never recomend anyone to play around with server side scripts or executables unless you really know what you are doing. If you make mistakes you can really mess up things with your website. You really need to bring in someone with the required programming skills and understanding of your current site arcitechture and limitations.

[talon39]

I have been a certified Web Designer (not Developer) since 2001.
I have never had a problem setting up a prewritten serverside script, though my coding skills fall short of writing something like this myself. I have setup and even customized dozens over the years. Thus I understand what I'm asking for. My question was, is there a script already written somewhere that I could purchase, that accomplishs what I'm trying to do? I'm sure my problem isn't new and I have already installed and tested several scripts that fall short. If I cannot find a prewritten script that suites my needs(there are dozens to try), I would of course consult a programmer to devlope one.
You do not have to be a programmer to setup a database and install a php or ASP script.
Thanks for the advice. :rolleyes: