Internal Linking Structure Elements Strategy - JavaScript or DHTML Dropdown or Pulldown Menus
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Many sites utilize the pulldown or dropdown menu to allow users to locate sections of a site quickly. There are two basic forms of the dropdown or pulldown menus. The first form is the JavaScript pulldown and the second form is the DHTML dropdown.
The JavaScript pulldown menu is found at the top right of this site (i.e. SEOChat.com), right next to the go button. As you can see this form of navigation allows your Web visitor to quickly jump from one section of the site to another section. The main problem with this type of navigation is that search engine spiders have a difficult time reading the URLs within the JavaScript. In addition, usability experts tend not to like JavaScript pulldown menus and recommend offering alternative navigation in addition to the JavaScript pulldown menu. It would be wise to use hypertext links as primary or secondary navigation when utilizing JavaScript pulldown menus for both usability and search engine visibility.
The DHTML dropdown menus are dazzling to the eye and a great way to fit subsections into main section navigation. As you can see on my corporate site,
RustyBrick, Inc., the homepage utilizes a multitude of DHTML, CSS and JavaScript to perform the dropdown menu like navigation. This also makes for a very complex piece of hyperlink navigation that search engine spiders tend to chock on when reading. In order help the search engines spider the site; my company has utilized alternative hypertext link navigation throughout the homepage as well as the "noscript tag". The noscript tag looks like <noscript>alternative web page</noscript>. The noscript tag enables browsers with JavaScript disabled to display an alternate form of the Web site that is contained within the <noscript></noscript> tags. This tag is often abused by "Spammers," and should only be used on JavaScript intensive sites. Search engines do use the content and links within the noscript tag when indexing the contents of a site. So the noscript tag is a good method of utilizing the pulldown and dropdown menus and providing the Web visitor and search engine an alternative method of accessing your site.
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