Search Engine Friendly Pull-Down Navigation Menu
One of the issues I run across frequently is site navigation that is not easily crawled by the search engines. One of the mistakes made by developers is using pull-down menu’s that don’t include the href tags within the page html. Depending on the pull-down script, these href’s/url’s are usually hidden away in an external file and out of sight to the search engines.
It’s been my experience that sites using non-href pull-down navigation exclusively have a hard time being crawled and fully indexed.
There are options:
1. Change applications. Use a pull-down script that does include href’s within the page HTML. With today’s web development technologies, a pull down script utilizing href’s within page code may be a tough find but well worth the effort. DHTML opens up many opportunities when it comes to this issue and some further research will provide you with some options.
2. Provide alternatives. If you must use a pull-down script that excludes the href’s then try providing the search engines some crawling alternatives. Use a footer with text links to your pages, use image links or an image map. As well as any other method of posting your links in a more search engine friendly format.
3. Site map. In addition to the options listed above. Make a site map using basic href text links.
Bottom line: Don’t use a pull-down script that does not post the href tags within the page html as your only form of site navigation.