SEO and Javascipt

[KPickenJr]

Hi, my apologies if this has been covered in a previous thread.

I work in a company with programmers and designers. SEO is a new area for my company so my clients were already customers with sites created and hosted by us. This means that when I look at a site and request changes, i am changing work already completed by the designers.

The latest site I am working on has javascript menu's. When I began learning about SEO, I thought Javascript was bad. However, some sites I have looked at have javascript links but SE's seem to like them. Knowing next to nothing about Javascript, I can only assume that it depends on how you do it, I guess you can make it search engine friendly.

My site only has the homepage indexed, so I wanted the javascript changed. Purely because, even if that's not the problem... is it really worth the hassle? And, just supposing the javascript wasn't SE friendly, would a site map with simple html links at the bottom of each page solve this (the designers argument)? In this case, to simplify it, you would have bad links at the top of the page and good links at the bottom. To me that doesn't sound right. Would the good links at the bottom cancel out any negative effects of the bad links at the top? :confused:

I'm really looking to clear this up, to hear the opinions of others in SEO, other than web designers who will obviously favour it. I realise that Javascript may not be the reason my site doesn't get good coverage, but this is an issue I will have to deal with a lot now.

Thanks

KP

[Chris_D]

some sites I have looked at have javascript links but SE's seem to like them

Just to clarify - no.

NO.

A text based browser, without plugins - can't execute a client side script.

Disable Javascript in a non IE browser like Firefox. Do the links work? If they work in Firefox - with Javascript disabled/off - they aren't Javascript links.

Many accessible link menu strategies - like Suckerfish & sons thereof - use javascript to make the IE version 'play nicely'. Look at the same menus in a much more standards compliant browser - like Firefox/ Opera - with javascript disabled. If the menus don't work - its an accessibility issue.

[berneboy]

When it comes to javascript, SEs won't penalize you for using it in menus etc, (unless you are using javascript for cloaking..). The SEs will however not follow the links in such menus and for that reason you might not get all your pages indexed.

The solution to have simple textlinks at the bottom of each page is actually a very good solution to your problem. Not only will SEs follow the links, users with older, non javascript compatible, browsers will also be able to navigate your page.

/berneboy

[SanDiegoSEO]

Just remember, you CAN use all the unfriendly SEO elements you want (DHTML, JavaScript, Flash, etc...) as long as you backk it up with the seo friendly verison. YOu can build the sites main navigiation entirely in flash, as long as you have a backup, that is readable and indexable by the spiders, they'll use that one, and the users can still have the experience the designers are going for.

[KeithO]

I have a client who's entire navigation is in javascript and they have nothing more than their home page indexed for this reason. we are doing a redesign for them now. your best bet would be to add a site map, submit it to Google and also add it to your web site.