Text Links and Search Engines

[ericd]

I have got my web sites template all ready to go, but I have the links not as <a href,,, but in a javascript function, but i know the search engines wont spider this, so i am trying to work around it

to give you a basic idea what the menu looks like, I have a text bullet to the left of each and every link, as shown below:

>> link 1
>> link 2

I dont want to have the actual text linked via a <a href, because i want all clickthru's to go via the javascript,

but I could make the ">>" a <a href link to try and get all pages indexed, so this way most clickthrus will go via the javascript

but if i am better off just linking the menu text with <a href and not java script, then i will do it this way and forget the javascript

does the search engline check to see what the link is from, whether it be an image, word or a bullet even,, or does it just scout the page for all <a href, tags and links those?


Thanks.

[Aidan Bahta]

Consider using text links rather than JavaScript links altogether. I'm not sure if this is possible for what you are doing (I'd need more details), but it will help users who have javascript disabled, and it would help your search engine placement as well.

[Setac]

ericd

Depending on the look you want there are different ways to place 'text links.'

For my Flash and DHTML pages I will place a layer on the page and add all the standard <a href's I want the search engine to spider. This can be positioned at the bottom of the page for the sake of appearance. Or if it spoils my 'look', I set the layer to hidden so that it does not show.

As of now, I am not aware of any search engine that checks the DIV tags for visibility. So they follow the links.

Also, the DIV tags can be moved to the beginning of the file without changing the layer location on the rendered page. This helps get the tags read by those engines that only read a limited amount of a page.

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