Navigational Links in Dropdown Menus

[Diderino]

Hi Mozzers

will navigational links in dropdown menus carry the same weight for Google, just as navigational links that are always visible to the user do?

Thx, Chris

[DSM_UK]

Hi Chris

Yes as long as the links in the drop down are not hidden behind HTML comments prior to being visible to the user they will be treated the same.

To see how Google really sees your website, go to the Google cache of a page and click the 'text only version'

Kind Regards

[David-Kley]

http://seo-browser.com/

Run the domain through seo-browser. If it shows up there, you are good to go. The only problem I think you would have is if you used javascript or flash, as either of those are more difficult for the bot to read. (flash being pretty much impossible)

To me, the more important question would be: how can you structure your navigation to get a user to spend more time on the site? We have set up sites where only the top level menu item is available, then you have to select a side menu item. By not allowing a user to instantly select the page they want, you can increase on site time, while not hurting the user experience (since they will be directed into a page with info related directly to what they clicked on)

You can see this this in action on our site here: http://www.webdesignandcompany.com/ (for example)
Another big company that uses this style of menu is distilled marketing.

Hope this helps answer your original question, and provide some additional insight.

[WilliamKammer]

Woo! A new tool for me to play with. Thanks for the tip, David.

[David-Kley]

No problem

Trust me, you will love seo-browser. It makes it sooooo easy to see what is really going on behind the scenes. Hidden H1 tags, hidden content, h3 header tags in sidebars above first H1, all that good stuff. Enjoy