Javascript: Friend or Foe?

If you frequent different SEO forums you may have received mixed signals on things like Flash or JavaScript. You may be wondering if it’s safe to use these and if so, what the impact will be. In this article, I attempt to address your concerns over JavaScript.

A brief history of JavaScript

In 1995 Netscape developers realized they needed an easy way to make Java applets more accessible to non-Java programmers and web designers. While it was plagued with problems and errors that were unable to be diagnosed in the early days, the popularity of this simplistic scripting language has hung on and has gotten more popular over time.

Because of its cross-browser compatibility, in that most modern browsers now support JavaScript, and the relative ease of use and implementation, JavaScript has become popular among designers looking for a more dynamic edge for their websites.

So, is JavaScript bad?

In an nutshell, no. If it is used properly, and some basic rules are followed then JavaScript is acceptable.

The biggest flaw with many sites which use JavaScript is that the developer embeds navigation inside of JavaScript menus which render the links invisible to search engine crawlers and therefore the crawler won’t follow those links.

But if you remove the navigation from the JavaScript it then becomes a very powerful scripting tool to help you achieve various effects that HTML can not.

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