Google's been JavaScripted!

[geosite]

I don't need help here; Google does. If you visit Google News and type in JavaScript...

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ne...pt&btnG=Search

...you get an entire page of identical references:

This menu uses JavaScript.

I checked the first link and found this in the source code:

<noscript>This menu uses javascript</noscript>

I'm just curious: What's this all about? I assume this message is supposed to display when the page is visited by someone who has JavaScript disabled, right? Why would search engines spider something enclosed in <noscript> tags, and is there some way to prevent them from indexing this entirely?

It might be no big deal, but it sure makes it hard to research the latest news on JavaScript! Thanks.

[AutisticCuckoo]

This is typical in sites that rely on client-side JavaScript to generate their navigation menu. Search engine 'bots don't process JavaScript, but focus on the content of the page. Thus they'll see the unfriendly message in the NOSCRIPT element.