31 replies to this topic

[Pete L]

Has anyone experienced problems with getting backlinks from your own pages when the links to those pages are routed through a CGI form instead of direct hyperlinks? To clarify more, the CGI scripts simply redirects to a static page and each static page has a home link in it.

Example:

FORM - select your state: (Menu of 50 states)

vs.

href - Alabama
href - Alaska
etc.

(I did not want to make actual go-nowhere hyperlinks, but you get the idea.)

I am considering the addition of state hyperlinks to the bottom of the main page as an alternative to using the CGI redirect form. I have this state hyperlink format in the site map, but the site map is not being picked up by the bots, so far. I have seen the FAQ and article links, but not the site map. I may need to move that link up to the top where the others I just mentioned (Articles and FAQ) are listed.

Thanks,

Pete

[Jill]

Search engines can't fill out forms, so they can't see links that only occur upon submission of a form.

[Pete L]

That was my concern. I will either have to try to get that site-map link moved up or just add the hyperlinks directly to the main page. I may just do both. This could be a very beneficial adjustment, one that I hope will create a more indepth spidering of the site.

Thanks Jill,

Pete

P.S. I just noticed, I moved up to an HR3! (Is that a good thing, or do I just ask too many stupid questions?)

[Jill]

(Is that a good thing, or do I just ask too many stupid questions?)

Both?

[Pete L]

Jill!!!

O.M.G. - She got me to use smilies.

[Randy]

There's a way to do it so that it looks like a form to vistors but actually isn't Pete. Just a bit of CSS magic. Sort of a best of both worlds solution.

Rather than try to explain how to do it, check out the Quick Links or Schools dropdown boxes on the NYU site.

[dmcconkey]

That's just a suckerfish drop-down, right? I never thought of using in place of a select. Makes perfect sense for "Find our products in your state" locators.

Cool link.

-Dan

[Randy]

Yep. That's basically the concept Dan.

Visitors view it as a styled form dropdown list. Search engine spiders eat up those links. That much I can assure you.

[Pete L]

Well, as the saying goes, it looks good on paper, but...

The site has a minimum number of menu items and it does not quite get them all displayed in a browser on IE 5. It does better on IE 6 and FireFox. It requires two Javascripts in addition to the CSS scripts. I would need to find out how much more scripting would be required to get a menu like that to scroll (You just cannot get 50 states on a menu. The problem gets worse when you get into states like California that require hundreds of cities to be included. This is a great solution for a site that has fewer menu selections, but I cannot see a way I could make good use of it. I think I would be better off just adding the 50 direct hyperlinks to the bottom of the page.

I certainly appreciated the reply and the link. As I stated, I think that concept is a great idea for smaller menus and I would never have even known it existed, if it were not for your post. (Over 6-months ago, I asked about redirect options just like this one on two other forums. No answers like this ever surfaced.)

Thanks,

Pete

[Jill]

Pete I'm sure there are similar solutions for larger menus.

[Pete L]

Jill, Don't you mean you "assume?" There probably is a method of doing it in Javascripting, as it could certainly be done in Basic, VB, or C. Maybe, there is even a ready made script available; however, the problem with this solution is reliability (simple HTML hyperlinks, so far, continues to be supported by all browsers.) The NYU site does not work as well as it should on IE 5. Also, Javascript often times needs to be tweaked every time a new browser release is made. If Javascripting is disabled in your browser, certain effects won't even work. Cross-browser compatibility is yet another issue. The thing I was surprised to see at that site is the fact the CSS is imported but the Javascript is not. It is better to import the Javascript, so if changes in a browser release create problems, only the script needs to be changed. Maybe they just use this script on a single page, if so, it is just as easily changed with either method.

One thing I was impressed with is that when I turned my Javascripting off, the menu still worked. I know the menu requires the script, because if you remove the script, it won't open. I ned to find out if certain scripts will work, even if Javascripting is disabled.

I will check a couple of programming sites that have some experienced Javascript programmers and see what they think. Maybe, if I can come up with something, I can post a link here to help anyone else who has a similar long-menu element.

[Randy]

Pete,

First, IE5 is archaic. I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about that one unless your site stats indicates you have a significant portion of your users still using IE5. It just means they haven't upgraded anything in 2 years or so. Same goes with NN4.x as far as I'm concerned.

Also, if the idea is to get the SE's to see those links browser versions we humans use have no bearing. The links just need to be visible in the source code sans Javascript. Engine bots never see the actual dropdown box, so they're still going to see all of the links.

If you have a longer list, I'm 100% sure it could be created in such way that all of the links could be seen in any fairly modern browser. IE5 had severe box model issues, but you could code around those. NN4.x didn't support much CSS, so that one is a moot point.

[Jill]

You could always put them in a noscript tag if you were concerned, also.

[Pete L]

I've heard of Jack and Jill, I've heard of Jack in the box, and Jill, well, luckily, Jill thinks outside the box!

The few times I have seen the noscript message, well, it simple states that your browser does not support Javascript or you need to turn Javascripting on to access a feature. The tags, however, are just begin and end execution markers, so, although I have never tried it, it seems reasonable that HTML code could be placed in between the tags.

Cool idea, Jill

Pete

P.S. I am not so sure about the scrolling suckerfish menus. I have contacted three programming sites, had 30 views collectively, and so far, no one has reported seeing such a script. I need to give it a couple more days to see if something turns up, but after reading about 50 posts about suckerfish menus, I would estimate about half the people who use them have expressed difficulty with them, especially with cross-browser reliability.

[Jill]

The few times I have seen the noscript message, well, it simple states that your browser does not support Javascript or you need to turn Javascripting on to access a feature.

Those are by people without a clue.

Go to my home page at www.highrankings.com and view the source. I use it there because my javascript menu is not spiderable.

Simple as pie.