Hello, i realized that using the old way of doing a dropdown menu <select> <option> </select> etc etc doesn't work for SEO purposes. Is there a way to do it through CSS? and use <ul> <li> </ul> instead so the pages in the dropdown menu can be indexed? thanks,
Remeber that bots only read the coding, therefore css drop down menu is fine, as all the links are within the source code
Yes, using a CSS-formated list is the way to go. http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/final_drop.html for instance.
the <select><option>...etc... works pretty fine with SEs. Maybe your problem is that you use some javascript drop down menu. On the other hand - I see no value in optimizing the menu - if it is repeated on every page of your site, the SEs (at least Google) will recognize it.
This is very much correct. Even Yahoo dont have any issues with it. Why cant we leave a scope for human errors I have seen many sites who are not validating to HTML, CSS or code full of errors still tops the SE's. To me it does not make any difference.
If for some reason... for design purposes, you really want the select box than using CSS dropdowns, for example, your client is really forcing you to use the select box even if you tell them if not good for SEO. If you can have another place on the site that has the links that are really crawlable, then you should be fine. But.. if the only way to get to the pages is through that select box. Then you can either: 1- Do CSS Dropdowns. 2- Use a noscript tag. Word of caution though, do not abuse the noscript tag. And use it only for alternative navigation for the Javascript select box. If abused, this can be flagged as blackhat.