Content within JavaSccript code

[mjmorse]

I know that it is not a good practice to inlcude SEO content within JavaScript, but are there exceptions to what Google can spider or is it best to just avoid completely?

[mjmorse]

Thank you for the quick responses.

Thanks,

Matthew

[RyanOD]

From my perspective, whenever possible you want to make your JavaScript content degrade gracefully. Basically, if a visitor has JavaScript turned off, they still have access to the content they would see if JavaScript was turned on. This also eliminates the need to worry about whether searchbots can or cannot spider such content.

As an example, consider a JavaScript based image carousel. With JavaScript turned on, the user can cycle through the images in a (usually) user friendly way via the carousel controls. With JavaScript turned off, the user can still see the images, but may have to click on them to see them displayed in the browser window - not as slick, but not bad either.

One key aspect to this type of development is writing well organized markup / code / scripts that allows for your JavaScript to be seperated from your HTML.

A great resource for learning about this is DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith.

[G-Force]

Hi Mjmorse,

What do you mean by SEO content? Do you mean that your content is only targeted for search engine spiders?

In case your content is also targeting the actual real users that will visit your website, I suggest you avoid javascript for content in case some of them are using mobile device with limited javascript support.

Plain text content right in the HTML is always preferable over dynamicaly loaded content from JS. Using javascript is usualy a way to hide content to search engines, not the opposite.

Best regards,
Guillaume Voyer.

[DanDeceuster]

A simple javascript that does something like document.write is fine. Google can execute a lot of javascript now. The key is to to webmaster tools and fetch the page as googlebot. Then you can see what Google can see on your page. If you have SEO content in a javascript and Google cannot see it, I would change it. If Google can see it and index it just fine, no problems.