Search Engine Spiders

[miniman]

How do they work? I've been told that they can't cope with sites that are built without traditional href linking - e.g. sites with significant javascript onclick events. This, I'm told, stops the search engine spiders from properly indexing the site.

Any tips on the best way to get maximum visibility to the spiders???

[fazz81]

I would say make sure the index page has text describing your site (making sure you include keywords)

[Plotloss]

The only one to take any notice of really is the Google spider.

That works by ascertaining the quality of your site by the amount of people that link to it and what you link to.

Theres loads of info on the web about optimising for Google.

[LaurenceFrost]

As long as you have a sitemap which has proper HTML links then you should be fine using javascript/flash/etc to navigate.

That said, I never use the above.

[alunr]

Personally we never use javascript except where totally nessecary. Anything that can reduce the 100% "Can See" audience isn't worth the risk unless there is a significant business arguement for the "feature".

[miniman]

Thanks for the info. The key problem as I see it is that in this particular site (a) all the content is loaded up into iFrames and (b) there are no "pages" as such, just main.php?mode=x where x determines what content to load. Think we will have to start by setting up a load of <noframes> data and then look further at the nav.