Does Google Read Javascript?
-
I would like to include a list of links in a select type box which I would like google to follow. In order to do this, I will be styling it with the help of javascript, and in turn change the select box into a ul and the options into li's. The li's would each contain a link, but if javascript is disabled it will fallback to a normal css styled select box.
My question is would google follow the links made by the javascript? Or would the bot just recognize the select box as a select box and not links.
Thanks for any help!
-
Some additional notes...
Traditionally, Google hasn't followed javascript, but they are getting much better at using it for link discovery.
Just a few weeks ago Matt Cutts made a video in which he recommended making your javascript more readable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8yTn_HLDaJs
And some evidence in the wild about Google becoming more script friendly:
http://www.webpronews.com/is-googlebot-getting-more-human-like-2012-05
That said, it's still by far better for SEO purposes to ensure that your links are HTML based. Although Google may still discover javascript links, it's unknown what link attributes like anchor text and PageRank pass through them. Best practices, for now, still say to use regular HTML links.
-
Matt says that Google can read some javascript...
Danny Sullivan speculates that they will be able to see those links:
http://searchengineland.com/google-can-now-execute-ajax-javascript-for-indexing-99518
But in my opinion, if you want your links to be seen without a doubt, don't put them in java.
-
I would assume you're talking about using a JS method to create links in the DOM. The answer here is no, Googlebot will not recognize them. Google has improved their ability to read some JS (like if you use an embedded JS link Googlebot can understand that) but it does not interpret or execute JS that I know of.
If you go this route, I would suggest enumerating your links in a noscript block.
-
Google doesn't follow javascript so if you want the links followed on that page you'll need to somehow include them in your code.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google indexing is slowing down?
I have up to 20 million unique pages, and so far I've only submitted about 30k of them on my sitemap. We had a few load related errors during googles initial visits, and it thought some were duplicates, but we fixed all that. We haven't gotten a crawl related error for 2 weeks now. Google appears to be indexing fewer and fewer urls every time it visits. Any ideas why? I am not sure how to get all our pages indexed if its going to operate like this... love some help thanks! HnJaXSM.png
Technical SEO | | RyanTheMoz0 -
Google Not Indexing Submitted Images
Hi Guys! My question isn't too dissimilar to one asked a couple of years ago, regarding Google and image indexing, but having put my web address into a Google image search, I get a return of 15 images, so something isn't right. 5 months ago I submitted our 'new' site to Google webmaster. We have just moved it onto a Shopify platform. They (Shopify) are good at providing places to add titles and Alt tags and likewise we fill them in (so that box ticked!) However I have noticed over the last couple of months that despite 161 images being submitted, only 51 have been indexed. Furthermore and as I said earlier, when you put our site, site:http://www.hartnackandco.com into Google images, it only returns a total of 15 images. Any suggestions and help would be wonderful! Cheers Nick
Technical SEO | | nick_HandCo0 -
Page missing from Google index
Hi all, One of our most important pages seems to be missing from the Google index. A number of our collections pages (e.g., http://perfectlinens.com/collections/size-king) are thin, so we've included a canonical reference in all of them to the main collection page (http://perfectlinens.com/collections/all). However, I don't see the main collection page in any Google search result. When I search using "info:http://perfectlinens.com/collections/all", the page displayed is our homepage. Why is this happening? The main collection page has a rel=canonical reference to itself (auto-generated by Shopify so I can't control that). Thanks! WUKeBVB
Technical SEO | | leo920 -
Why google indexed pages are decreasing?
Hi, my website had around 400 pages indexed but from February, i noticed a huge decrease in indexed numbers and it is continually decreasing. can anyone help me to find out the reason. where i can get solution for that? will it effect my web page ranking ?
Technical SEO | | SierraPCB0 -
Having to type Google CAPTCHA all the time
Hi guys, Our office has about 15 computers all on the same IP address and about 10 actively search on Google. Recently we have been asked to type in CAPTCHA almost every single time searching on Google and would like to know if you have any suggestions of resolving this. We do use Firefox Rank Checker to check ranking once per week (around 400 keywords) but we use Hide My Ass to hide the IP. No malware or virus detected on computers in the network. Many thanks for your help in advance David
Technical SEO | | sssrpm0 -
Unexplained spikes in Google Analytics
My site has modest traffic (50 unique visitors per day). In the past week, I've seen two unexplained spikes in my Google Analytics. Yesterday, there were 140 unique visitors, and these unique visitors each visited one unique page. This appears to be a bot of some sort. If this is a bot, why does Google Analytics think these are unique visitors? Is there a was for small sites to deal with this? Best,
Technical SEO | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Is the number at the top of google wrong
If I search a term, any term, Google states at the top 922,000 results (as an example). However, if you click the "O" in google at the bottom you can get the 2nd and 3rd and 4th page of results. Those numbers don't match. The result of my searches would show anywhere from 120-140 results, but the number at the top is in the tens of thousands if not millions. Am I missing something here? Shouldn't these numbers be the same?
Technical SEO | | StreetwiseReports0 -
Google crawl index issue with our website...
Hey there. We've run into a mystifying issue with Google's crawl index of one of our sites. When we do a "site:www.burlingtonmortgage.biz" search in Google, we're seeing lots of 404 Errors on pages that don't exist on our site or seemingly on the remote server. In the search results, Google is showing nonsensical folders off the root domain and then the actual page is within that non-existent folder. An example: Google shows this in its index of the site (as a 404 Error page): www.burlingtonmortgage.biz/MQnjO/idaho-mortgage-rates.asp The actual page on the site is: www.burlingtonmortgage.biz/idaho-mortgage-rates.asp Google is showing the folder MQnjO that doesn't exist anywhere on the remote. Other pages they are showing have different folder names that are just as wacky. We called our hosting company who said the problem isn't coming from them... Has anyone had something like this happen to them? Thanks so much for your insight!
Technical SEO | | ILM_Marketing
Megan0