[thelist] The old Google indexing issue

[Chris Hayes]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joshua Olson" <joshua at waetech.com>

> > Try using the main navigation of the site with JS disabled.
> > There's your answer!
>
> Allow me to elaborate on myself for a second.  I recall hearing at some
> point in the past that the googlebot has the smarts to not follow links
that
> are hidden... at least in a limited sense.  In this case, the navigation
> div's have display: none.  If what I heard was right, then google would
skip
> these links as they were obviously hidden from view.
>

It's a fair point.

This is a long-running headache for me, the client insisted on these JS
menus, I had a big problem with mostly because the spec was to advance to a
more accessible design.  The result is my best guess compromise, it still
works without styles / js (although I can see an improvement right away... I
might make the js hide the sub menus after the page has loaded).   It would
be a laugh if the problem was this.

Anyway, the Sitemap link is not hidden, and the resulting page contains all
the hidden links on the menu.  Google should be able to index?  Unless it
decides to ignore visible links that are hidden elsewhere.



PS Also.. before you mention...yes the META keywords and description are
empty.. this is in the control of the SEO expert.