6 replies to this topic

[piskie]

I know this has been covered, but when I did a search, the results were quite historic so I would like to know the current situation.

Do spiders follow links in Jump Menus ? If so which ones do and which ones don't. Here's a Code Sample:

<form name='jump' action="" style="height: 12px; margin-bottom: 5px;">
<select name='menu' onChange='location=document.jump.menu.options[document.jump.menu.selectedIndex].value;'>
<option>2009 Collection</option>
<option value="eshop.php">Full Range</option>
<option value="eshop.php?category=widgets">Widgets</option>

Any comments on recent findings would be much appreciated.

[MaKa]

To my knowledge the example you gave still isn't followed by search engines.

[Randy]

Same here. To my knowledge the bots still don't consistently follow links that appear inside a <form> tag. Though Google has been experimenting with search forms, that's not what you're talking about with a jump link form.

The most common way to get those links followed is to remove it from a <form> and instead style a <ul><li> list to look like a form, even though it contains real <a href links.

[petri]

The most common way to get those links followed is to remove it from a <form> and instead style a <ul><li> list to look like a form, even though it contains real <a href links.

I have just started to change all the links in my photo gallery from ordinary blue links on the page, to a jump list.
I couldn't see any <form> or <ul><li> tags in the code. A java script makes the whole thing work.

<option value="http://www.aaaa.com/a/b/c/abc.html">A B C</option>

Is this bad for the search engines? Can they follow the links?

[Randy]

<option> is an attribute of a <form> per the specs, so it should have a form tag in there somewhere regardless.

Without one, and without seeing the code, I assume the javascript is reading the option being submitted and doing the form submit via js.

In either case, you're throwing up a big roadblock for the search engine spiders. They won't follow through either to my knowledge.

[petri]

OK, thanks.

Maybe the time has come to try to get a CSS drop down menu to work.

[piskie]

Thanks everybody, that more or less confirms my thoughts on this. The client will have to have a nice set of CSS Links just like I wanted to do in the first place.