Display: none ... good idea concerning search engines??

[bissatch]

Hi,

I ocasionally use display: none; to hide divs that, on the click of a
link they will reappear. For example, maybe I create a menu and when
you click a link of menu options the submenu options appear. When I
used this attribute, would search engines ignore indexing the hidden
submenu links because it doesnt initially appear on the screen. Im a
bit concerned that my links wont be followed through during indexing
(and theres many of them to individually submit each page)

Cheers

Burnsy

[Andreas Prilop]

On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, bi******@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

would search engines ignore indexing the hidden
submenu links because it doesnt initially appear on the screen.

The phrase "doesn't appear on the screen" is meaningless for
search engines.
http://google.com/search?q=cache:www...t.html&strip=1
gives you an idea how Google "sees" a page.

Btw: This page also shows you which elements exist in HTML 4
besides DIV.

--
In memoriam Alan J. Flavell
http://groups.google.com/groups/sear...Alan.J.Flavell

[Sherman Pendley]

bi******@yahoo.co.uk writes:

I ocasionally use display: none; to hide divs that, on the click of a
link they will reappear. For example, maybe I create a menu and when
you click a link of menu options the submenu options appear. When I
used this attribute, would search engines ignore indexing the hidden
submenu links because it doesnt initially appear on the screen.

Google ignores "hidden" divs. Too many jerks tried to "game" the search
engines by adding non-relevant keywords, and using "display:none" to hide
them from site visitors.

So, you need to do it the other way around. Create your menu so that it's
completely expanded, then use JS to hide the submenus. That will also ensure
that your menu is usable without JS, which is always a good thing.

sherm--

--
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[salmobytes]

On Dec 7, 10:12 am, Sherman Pendley <[e-mail]:

Google ignores "hidden" divs.

So, you need to do it the other way around.

Or do it like http://tides.org

I was recently asked to build a site similar to this.
Every page pointed to by either the visible, not-hidden
main link on any dropdown and/or the hidden links in the
dropdown part of that dropdown menu, get visibly duplicated
in a leftside column on the resulting page.

You still see popdown (or out) menus on every page.
But that same navigation is also duplicated in an always visible
column as well.....I suppose you could put all such links in a static
sitemap too, and then provide at least one not-hidden link to that.

Hiding links from search engines doesn't make much
sense (they bring the traffic we want). But there are always a half
a dozen or more ways to do what you want, and still give them what
they
need.

[Andreas Prilop]

On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, Sherman Pendley wrote:

Google ignores "hidden" divs.

http://google.com/search?q=live.exam...quirksmode.org

--
In memoriam Alan J. Flavell
http://groups.google.com/groups/sear...Alan.J.Flavell

[Bergamot]

bi******@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

>
Im a
bit concerned that my links wont be followed through during indexing
(and theres many of them to individually submit each page)

Make a separate site map page.

--
Berg