Spry menu does it affect SEO

Marketing
1

I have an issue with sprymenu’s, when I view the body text that the Bots scans- My menu shows up.

all of the sites that I have looked at are using Javascript 1.2 using the onmouse over ect, these menu’s do not appear in the body returned by Webceo when viewing the SE view report.

My question is does using a spry menu affect the SEO of a site.

To me the answer is yes as the menu seems to be taken as part of the body text for indexing by the bot.

Also if I am correct in presuming that Spry menu’s affect SEO , does anyone know of a good tut on Javascript menu’s 1.2. I have looked at many but all seemed terrible and not in depth enough for me.

Also I have noticed that the spry menu is coded as a list, the sites I have viewed using javascript 1.2 menu have not used the li (list) they have only used the <a href link for the menu in tables.

A site to look at where the spry menu has been used and appears in the main body text when viewed from the SE’s point of view is http://www.africanagenda.com

This is the javascript 1.2 menu I am viewing/ talking about

<td><img src="images/buttons/1.gif" width="112" height="28" /></td>
            <td><a href="index.htm" onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" onmouseover="MM_swapImage('Home','','images/buttons/2a.gif',1)"><img src="images/buttons/2.gif" name="Home" width="42" height="28" border="0" id="Home" /></a></td>
            <td><a href="#" onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" onmouseover="MM_swapImage('About Us','','images/buttons/3a.gif',1)"><img src="images/buttons/3.gif" name="About Us" width="64" height="28" border="0" id="About Us" onmouseover="MM_showMenu(window.mm_menu_0413162330_0,-15,17,null,'About Us')" onmouseout="MM_startTimeout();" /></a></td>
            <td><a href="operate.htm" onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" onmouseover="MM_swapImage('How we operate','','images/buttons/4a.gif',1)"><img src="images/buttons/4.gif" name="How we operate" width="102" height="28" border="0" id="How we operate" /></a></td>
            <td><a href="events.htm" onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" onmouseover="MM_swapImage('Future Events','','images/buttons/5a.gif',1)"><img src="images/buttons/5.gif" name="Future Events" width="88" height="28" border="0" id="Future Events" onmouseover="MM_showMenu(window.mm_menu_0705092959_0,0,16,null,'Future Events')" onmouseout="MM_startTimeout();" /></a></td>
            <td><a href="venues.htm" onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" onmouseover="MM_swapImage('Venues','','images/buttons/6a.gif',1)"><img src="images/buttons/6.gif" name="Venues" width="55" height="28" border="0" id="Venues" /></a></td>
            <td><a href="staff.htm" onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" onmouseover="MM_swapImage('Staff','','images/buttons/7a.gif',1)"><img src="images/buttons/7.gif" name="Staff" width="44" height="28" border="0" id="Staff" /></a></td>
            <td><a href="#" onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" onmouseover="MM_swapImage('News','','images/buttons/8a.gif',1)"><img src="images/buttons/8.gif" name="News" width="46" height="28" border="0" id="News" onmouseover="MM_showMenu(window.mm_menu_0413162931_0,-15,17,null,'News')" onmouseout="MM_startTimeout();" /></a></td>
            <td><a href="tours.htm" onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" onmouseover="MM_swapImage('Tours','','images/buttons/9a.gif',1)"><img src="images/buttons/9.gif" alt="tours" name="Tours" width="46" height="28" border="0" id="Tours" onmouseover="MM_showMenu(window.mm_menu_0129152622_0,-15,17,null,'Tours')" onmouseout="MM_startTimeout();" /></a></td>
            <td><a href="contact.htm" onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" onmouseover="MM_swapImage('Contact Us','','images/buttons/10a.gif',1)"><img src="images/buttons/10.gif" name="Contact Us" width="82" height="28" border="0" id="Contact Us" /></a></td>
            <td><img src="images/buttons/11.gif" width="98" height="28" /></td>

Any advice on this or help will really be appreciated. If someone is able to explain the java side that would really help, I have not found any java menu tuts that describe the onmouseout ect with example .

Thanks very much for reading this post

2

Well done c2uk in managing to decipher some of what I was asking.

I wrote this post after a very long frustrating day and I did not realise how poorly I was writing. I appologize.

I agree tables are out and have been out for a while yet still seem to be widely used. I only code using html , php, and css with MySql databases. The only place I use javascript is when I use spry menu’s if coding in dreamweaver. However the rest of the site I always hand code.

I do know how to code menus only using html and css.

I recently did a course in SEO and am slowly building up my experience. Something that I picked up when looking at a clients competitors website, was that their menu did not appear in the SE view yet the spry menu I used did appear in the SE view.

I only use Web CEO to view the SE report that it generates on the site for keywords.
For the rest I use free tools.

My concern when seeing that my spry menu (using lists) was appearing in the SE view, is does this affect the SEO of the site. The reason I am concerned is that the competitors site does not use lists for the menu. Admittedly they are using images.

I presume that is the reason that they have used the images opposed to text to get the heading to appear as the first bit of text for SE to start reading for keyword prominence and weight in the body .

If this is the case and is clarified then I will need to change the way I code my menu.

Thank you for the links, they are useful. As I said I am new to SEO even though I am qualified in SEO I still am a little unsure of myself hence me asking SEO Questions.

Once again , Thank you very much for the time you took to respond to my post, I appreciate it and appologise for the poor first post.

3

A couple of things:

  1. this is javascript not java. Javascript has pretty much nothing to do with Java and both are quite different, so don’t confuse those two ever.

  2. please use the [ html ] tags to post html code, other sytax, e.g. for whole javascripts, is also available in the editor to select - this makes it much easier to read.

  3. table for layout is out. please make an effort to use alternatives, like lists and divs - see htmldog for some tutorials, or buy the sitepoint book.

  4. you don’t need javascript for a simple image swap, check out css image swaps (depending on the effect you want to achieve, you might not even need an image, some CSS attributes might be enough), plenty of tutorials can be found on that, here’s one that also incorporates a list tutorial: http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/horizontal07.htm

4

Thanks very much.
Yes you did answer the question, I am aware of all that you mentioned. I do use alt attributes for images.
My main concern was getting rid of the SE reading the navigation. I would prefer the SE to index and navigate the site via a sitemap. I also always want my heading 1 to be the first on-page text it reads after the title, description and keywords. The way I have been coding my navigation, makes the navigation appear above the <H1> tag.

I definately need to change the way I code my navigation so that I can raise my headings. I know that I am being pedantic about a very small area of SEO that influences the ranking in the SERP’s very little. I just believe that I must get everything 100% even if it is the smallest part of SEO.

Thanks very much for your help and time. I hope you feel better soon :slight_smile:

5

SEO:

search engines can’t read javascript or images. If you don’t have it already get the web developer toolbar for Firefox. That one lets you disable Javascript very easily (once disabled you need to reload the page to see the effect), as well as do all sort of things with images that help you with your SEO efforts:

  • outline & hide background images: css image replacements, search engines don’t know that there’s an image, they get to see the text, which you as a normal user don’t see as it’s being replaced with the background image. As I said some menus utilise this approach.
  • Hide images: this hides both background & normal images and is better than disable images.
  • Display Alt Attributes: if you’re using plain images, search engines use the alt and title attribute to identify what the image is about. Images > View Image Information, or Information > Display Title Attributes.

not sure whether I answered your question, you’ve written an awful long post and I’m not feeling a 100% at the moment.