if I need to redirect a user immediately upon entering a page (doing so through Javascript) does this pose any issues with crawlers in terms of having a chance to read the contents on this redirecting page? I want the redirecting page to be indexed as normal by the spider but a browser to jump to another page within the domain.
I believe Google is now onto the Javascript redirect...I know a couple years ago that could work even though it is extremely against Google's TOS. Why not 301 the old page to the new page and make the content on the new page what you want users and google to see?
If you redirect with 301 or 302 will be fine, using any other technique may look like sneaky redirect will lead some penalty.