SEO question - my menu

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guest2013-1

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I have a menu that pops up on mouse over. It's just a <div> hidden somewhere with a better structured menu (other than that stupid tree type menu's)

For an example look at www.quickdubai.com's menu system. Yes, I'm responsible, no, I wasn't responsible for the actual html layout and code in it... :D

Would that impact on SEO seeing as the bot would crawl links? or does it ignore styles and javascript (I know it ignores JS) and just crawl everything regardless?

Reason I ask is one client has a big menu like that and I just want to make sure it won't negatively impact her by using that as she's currently ranked quite high in google and I'm busy with her new design/layout

PS. I ****ing hate web designers who half-ass their job!
 
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CrazyBob

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It should crawl everything (except JS as you say) ...just open up firefox with the webdev toolbar installed and push ctrl+shift+s ...that's pretty much what google will see.

As long as your code is properly semantic google should do just fine with hidden menu items.
 
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bradrap

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Spiders crawl only the visible text on a site so they ignore any styling, flash and non-html code. Now with them also having to index billions of pages a month and there only being so much time in a day, the spider will look at the first, let's say for arguments sake, 1000 characters of a page.

A quick view at Quickdubai.com and all I see is javascript like below

Spidered Text :
Quick Dubai the online gift store kisserCount = 8 //maximum number of images on screen at one time curKisser = 0 //the last image DIV to be displayed (used for timer) kissDelay = 600 //duration images stay on screen (in milliseconds) kissSpacer = 50 //distance to move mouse b4 next heart appears theimage = "lips_small.gif" //the 1st image to be displayed theimage2 = "small_heart.gif" //the 2nd image to be displayed //Browser checking and syntax variables var docLayers = (document.layers) ? true:false; var docId = (document.getElementById) ? true:false; var docAll = (document.all) ? true:false; var docbitK = (docLayers) ? "document.layers['":(docId) ? "document.getElementById('":(docAll) ? "document.all['":"document." var docbitendK = (docLayers) ? "']":(docId) ? "')":(docAll) ? "']":"" var stylebitK = (docLayers) ? "":".style" var showbitK = (docLayers) ? "show":"visible" var hidebitK = (docLayers) ? "hide":"hidden" var ns6=document.getElementById&&!document.all //Variables used in script var posX, posY, lastX, lastY, kisserCount, curKisser, kissDelay, kissSpacer, theimage lastX = 0 lastY = 0 //Collection of functions to get mouse position and place the images function doKisser(e) { posX = getMouseXPos(e) posY = getMouseYPos(e) if (posX>(lastX+kissSpacer)||posX(lastY+kissSpacer)||posY= kisserCount) {curKisser = 0} eval(docbitK + "kisser" + curKisser + docbitendK + stylebitK + ".left = " + processedx) eval(docbitK + "kisser" + curKisser + docbitendK + stylebitK + ".top = " + y) eval(docbitK + "kisser" + curKisser + docbitendK + stylebitK + ".visibility = '" + showbitK + "'") if (eval("typeof(kissDelay" + curKisser + ")")=="number") { eval("clearTimeout(kissDelay" + curKisser + ")") } eval("kissDelay" + curKisser + " = setTimeout('hideKisser(" + curKisser + ")',kissDelay)") curKisser += 1 } //Make the image disappear function hideKisser(knum) { eval(docbitK + "kisser" + knum + docbitendK + stylebitK + ".visibility = '" + hidebitK + "'") } function kissbegin(){ //Let the browser know when the mouse moves if (docLayers) { document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEMOVE) document.onMouseMove = doKisser } else { document.onmousemove = doKisser } } window.onload=kissbegin Home Gift Search Flowers & Balloons
Click to expand...

As you can see there's no relevant content or links that are immediately visible to the spiders and is not good for the overall SERPs.
 
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guest2013-1

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bradrap said:
Spiders crawl only the visible text on a site so they ignore any styling, flash and non-html code. Now with them also having to index billions of pages a month and there only being so much time in a day, the spider will look at the first, let's say for arguments sake, 1000 characters of a page.

A quick view at Quickdubai.com and all I see is javascript like below



As you can see there's no relevant content or links that are immediately visible to the spiders and is not good for the overall SERPs.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip, however, doesn't the bot ignore javascript?
 
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bradrap

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Yes, in a nutshell, Javascript is read by the spiders before it's been initialized by the web server but the processed output is not.
 
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murraybiscuit

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rather download lynx, as per google's recommendations.
here's a screenshot of how your dubai site looks:
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/album.php?albumid=609&pictureid=4326

i can't see from the @dequadin's link that js is parsed in any meaningful way for serps - more that spambots are able to read js.

i disagree with the stated indexing of flash etc.
google is (not optimally) able to parse swf, excel and doc files... probably a few other formats too.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/06/improved-flash-indexing.html

1. all major sections of your site should be reachable via text links, preferably from the first page on your site.
2. i don't see why containers should matter - the 'a' tag is the important part.
3. javascript links (onclick) should not be used for main navigation
4. a sitemap should be used if non-seo-friendly urls are used - e.g. domain/index.xxx?id=xxx
5. graceful degradation should resolve search and accessibility issues when using ajax, via hijax or simialr fallback techniques.

it seems that onclicks are now crawlable, but they still have accessibility issues unfortunately.

an interesting article detailing google's latest search advances:
http://searchengineland.com/google-...f-javascript-and-flash-but-is-it-enough-19881
from Google IO, May 2009
 
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bradrap

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Ahh my bad then, should have thought about it in that way. But you are 100% correct, normally I'd advise people to steer clear of Flash for ranking purposes but in the last few months the algorithm has changed to somewhat explore Flash content and in particular, AS3 which wasn't before. Still not enough for me to go and develop a Flash site though, but not far off either.

Learn something new everyday about SEO :>
 
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bradrap

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Just read this somewhere

Googlebot can track links in Flash files! Although Search Engine War gives a warning: This development has consequences. It could possibly lead to ‘Flash bombing’, which is a sort of spam that hides hundreds of links in Flash files. These links could become invisible for web site users. Search engine crawlers would however track and index them.
Click to expand...

Could become the next blackhat technique ;)
 
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bradrap

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dequadin said:
Have you guys seen this new Google Interface? pic
Obviously (or may not so) this will effect the way you categorise your sites for seo?

here's how to try it
Click to expand...

Yeah this came up as my default screen a few weeks ago and was like WTF, only lasted a day though. But for those who can't get this to work, you need to force google to load the US version by going to google.com/ncr then continue the javascript workaround as usual.

Also this won't change the indexing and ranking of sites currently, but Caffeine will be launched in the next few months which will.
 
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dequadin

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bradrap said:
Yeah this came up as my default screen a few weeks ago and was like WTF, only lasted a day though. But for those who can't get this to work, you need to force google to load the US version by going to google.com/ncr then continue the javascript workaround as usual.

Also this won't change the indexing and ranking of sites currently, but Caffeine will be launched in the next few months which will.
Click to expand...

I had to sign out of my Google account as well...
 
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murraybiscuit

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nice. thanks ppl.
is this the same engine that was at sandbox a few months back?
they've done some gui updates since. nice.
i like the lhs categorisation.
anybody got a launch date or any useful guides on the new algorithm?
 
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bradrap

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The SERPs are identical to the current algorithm and Caffeine will only be launched in the next few months (Q1 2010) but not on all servers, one at a time until it starts indexing the web sufficiently.
 
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convalescent

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getting back to the original question. if javascript is a concern switch over to a CSS based nav menu.

WRT to caffiene. as i said in a post (still waiting to be moderator approved) caffiene is a infrastructure update. Google has never made a algo change / update public. and they never will. as bradrap said the SERPs are the same in both. caffeine pre roll out data center can be found here: 209.85.225.103
 
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