5 replies to this topic

[garyhall]

Hi gang, Not sure where to post this, but here is the question.

How do the SE’s deal with javascript? Do sites with javascript have a more difficult time with the indexing process as compared with “regular” non-javascript HTML?

I recently looked a very nice site that had java script. The visible page text is located at the very bottom of the coded page and the javascript takes up 75% of the beginning and I was wondering how it gets indexed properly with all that “extra code”.

I have my own ideas about this, but I would appreciate it very much if I can have some opinions of those who have experimented or have a better knowledge of javascripting than I do.

Thanks.

Warm regards.

Gary

[SearchRank]

I believe SEs do not have any problem finding real html text but I do think that it is better strategy to place JavaScripts and even CSS in their own files and then call for them in the html rather than fully display the Java and style sheets in the html. I believe it helps spiders better crawl pages (don't have any solid evidence on this, just my opinion.) as well as makes file sizes smaller for faster downloading.

Example:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="text.css">
<script src="scripts/rollover.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

[qwerty]

I know spiders skip the code that they deem irrelevant, like scripts. But I wonder if, since spiders stop indexing pages after they reach a certain limit, the code they skip counts toward that limit.

In other words, if a page had a huge amount of javascript in its code, even though the bot ignored it, would it stop indexing the page when it hit its limit including the script, or excluding it?

Whether anyone knows the answer to that or not, I agree that it's a good idea to call style sheets and scripts remotely from the page rather than including them. They're easier to change for numerous pages that way, and they get cached the first time they run, causing pages to load faster.

[Ron Carnell]

External JS (or CSS) files are typically loaded once and then cached, which "can" greatly improve the user experience. Lowering bandwidth helps everyone involved, after all.

I really can't imagine that it makes any significant difference to a spider, though. At the speeds they operate, a few bytes more or less isn't a big deal. Once they get the embedded code, it takes one line of programming code to discard everything between any two matching tags, including of course, the script tags. HTML was designed to be easily parsed ... making it equally easy to ignore.

[powerofeyes]

Javascripts are not a problem for todays search engines. And you know some search engines exampls inktomi can read java script popups. This is what technology is all about. So even though lot of javascript is there in a webpage all search engines treat it as a part of the web page. Most of them ignores it and can find text from anywhere in a web page,
Only one criteria is dangerous for search engines. There shouldnt be more than 100 anchor text in a page,
VIJAY

[Jill]

Javascripts are not a problem for todays search engines.

Actually, some javascripts still are a problem for today's search engines. If you use any javascript that doesn't contain <a href> links, be sure that you also use the <noscript> tag to give the search engines something they can easily following.

It never hurts to also have text links at the bottom of your page, if it can fit in nicely with your site design.

I agree with Ron about the external vs. internal javascripts. Yes, it's nice to make them external, but it's most likely not going to actually impact your search engine rankings if you don't.

Jill