How to Optimize a Web Site Using JavaScript Menu - Tip Two: The noscript Tag
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In addition to implementing the breadcrumb and bottom navigations on the BBFA website, adding alternative set of links in the <noscript> pair of tag would enable the search engine crawler to get to the links at the top of the page!
If your page did not contain any links interspersed throughout the content, or in the breadcrumb and bottom navigations, without the help of the <noscript> tag, your web pages would be unreachable to the web crawlers, and any other browser and user-agent with disabled JavaScript.
Thus, adding a list of the main navigation links in plain HTML between the <noscript></noscript> tags can be a handy way of assisting the web crawler in accessing the most important pages of the site.
Since web crawlers behave like old web browsers (pre JavaScript, pre frames), the <noscript> tag enables you to put additional information which would be hidden from the new, JavaScript-enabled browsers, but would be seen by the browsers who are unable to understand JavaScript, or who simply have their JavaScript turned off.
One thing to keep in mind, though, is that the moment you put irrelevant information in the <noscript> tag, you might cross the line of search engine spamming. Search engines, like all of us, dislike spamming and in their determination to show relevant search results, they would in no time remove a keyword spamming website from their indexes. So, before you do anything for improving your web site ranking, ask yourself – would you do that if the search engines did not exist, and would it benefit the readers in addition to the search engines.
Next: Tips Three and Four: The Sitemap and Keyword Choice >>
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