Google Crawling Javascript Links with Clean URLs
Well, if Yahoo can crawl and index links surrounded by “no follow” command, then Google is going to have to do something just as crazy to throw a wrench into the world of SEO, links, and text advertising.
Barry Schwartz points out on SERoundtable that the GoogleBot is now crawling Javascript with “clean” URLs:
I have been noticing a patters of posts where more and more people are claiming that Google is posting JavaScript forms… Basically, if you have a clean URL in the JavaScript, GoogleBot will try to explore that URL.
Barry points to this thread in WebmasterWorld called Googlebot Now Executing Javascript?
I have a site where I have access to my log files and very good web stats. As a backup, on this particular site I use a third party javascript counter on the site (there’s javascript code that I put on the page and when a real human with a browser executes that javascript code it records the data).
The thing is, today (in fact about 30 minutes ago), googlebot just visited the site apparently. In other words, “googlebot” just executed javascript. What’s also weird is that I think this wasn’t someone “acting” like googlebot since there’s no web browser or other signs that it was using a browser to view the site.
Is googlebot now executing javascript?
I have had a similar experience yesterday where my stats had googlebot logged as a visitor using only javascript for the stats, after checking the ip it pointed to mountain view so at first i thought those nice guys and gals are giving me a vist then afterwards i thought maybe its one of their new bots which is looking for javascript redirects etc..
This, basically, has been going on for quite some time …
Here is a more recent controversial example ….
googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/03/googlebot-can-destroy-sites.html
The first Javascript crawl that I know of came out of Stanford University several years ago. Google has been fetching my Javascript template files for 2-3 years. Matt Cutts has confirmed on his blog that Google does in fact look at the Javascript in an effort to determine what its purpose is.
I’ve long felt it was only a matter of time before they started crawling the URLs they find in the Javascript. They don’t have to execute the code to parse it for fetchable URLs. Whether they’ll factors those links into their other indexing functions is a whole ‘nother issue.
But as Google expands it Javascript crawling, many Webmasters should take this as a hopeful sign that they can continue to use the type of internal navigation they prefer without having to worry about whether their pages will be crawled.
Of course, I’m not expecting Google to radicalize its crawling over night — other than what they just did with Big Daddy.
Some JavaScript code is more search engine friendly than others. As a general rule of thumb, the simpler the script is, the more likely a search engine spider can crawl the link.
really can google crawl javascript links…
for example, ajax pages from database
“Not actually executing, as far as I know — but taking javascript as text, and then seeing if something that looks like a url may be in the script. ” from tedster #:713780