Javascript

[PeterM22]

Hi mozzers,

For my website I use various affiliate programs on commission junction. Some of the text ads are in javascript. Will google read the text ads or not?

Cheers,

Peter

[DanDeceuster]

Google has said they can execute about 90% or so of all javascript at this point, so there is a good chance Google will be able to see these affiliate links, even if they are being done in javascript.

[PeterM22]

very helpful thanks!

[TaitLarson]

Hey Daniel,

Would you mind diving into that statement a little more?  I didn't realize that Google could execute 90% of javascript.  Do you think they will load in external javascript files?  Does google make ajax calls?

I only ask the questions b/c I have a web site who's home page that has too many links and too much HTML.  I'd love to use javascript to do some progressive rendering and keep some links and additonal HTML out of the initial HTTP response sent back when someone requests a page on our site.

Thanks in advance!

Tait

[DanDeceuster]

Yeah let me point you to some resources on this:

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/new-reality-google-follows-links-in-javascript-4930

Your best resource is from Google here:

http://code.google.com/apis/searchappliance/documentation/68/admin_crawl/AdvancedTopics.html#javascript

To your question though, I do believe Google will execute external javascript files. Ajax stuff I'm not as sure about. They have a primer on this here:

<cite>code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/docs/learn-more.html</cite>

The 90% thing I recall from SMX advanced last year I believe. Basically people would try to hide internal links in javascript since using nofollow for pagerank sculpting was debunked by Matt Cutts in 2009. Turned out Google could see most links being created in javascript.

You can read up on that second link there in javascript crawling from Google and it goes into a lot of detail about what they can do, hope it helps.

[TaitLarson]

Thanks very much for this.  Can't wait to check these resources out.

[TaitLarson]

Again, great resources, Daniel.  The first link provides some empirical evidence that ajax based links do get interpreted.  SEOmofo had a nice recommendation that should stop google from indexing your JS if need be.  He basically said put your JS in an external file that you disallow in robots.txt.

From your second link

The search appliance only executes scripts embedded inside a document. The search appliance does not support:

• DOM tracking to support calls, such as document.getElementById
• External scripts execution
• AJAX execution

Not exactly sure what "AJAX execution" means.  However, if it means downloading JSON or JS and evaluating it that makes sense.  Perhaps not external JS gets executed by google?

The third link discusses the "agreement" you can make with a crawler if you have an ajax based site using hash bang urls.  Not super relevant for me but good to know so thanks!