Just to let you know that I am not a SEO but I run my personal website related to my profession. Actually, I have a problem with some of my webpages. Can you please let me know if Googlebot actually runs JavaScripts while going through the webpage? I saw a few forum posts that suggest, URLs can be extracted from the JS code and will be followed. But the problem with my webpage shows that Googlebot can actually execute the javascript code. I used javascript code to solve the orphan page peoblem of my framed website. [ as suggested in http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol5/javascript_no7.htm ] Within the last week, I found that my high ranking website on SAP ( ERP ) has lost its rank for a lot many keywords. But that’s not the problem, I want to discuss here. One of my website page www.geocities.com/rmtiwari/Resources/Management/ASAP_Links.html ranks number one ( still is ) for the term ‘ASAP Methodology’. However, from today onwards the title of the webpage has changed to the main.html title ( not ASAP_Links.html ), used in Javascript to solve the orphan page issue. That seems to suggest, Googlebot is actually executing the Javascript. And all my pages will eventually end up in having the same title. Please suggest.
Your solution was to javascript redirect any page that loads to the main page of your site? That would be defined as a form of cloaking - and isn't a good idea. Google does NOT like cloaking. So in that sense: yes, it does read javascript.
I tried to find if Googlebot had the capability to actually execute the Javascript [ reading the javascript code and finding a few clean URLs from that is not the same as executing it like a web-browser ]. None of the search result suggests that it has this capability. Please check the Google results for "googlebot execute javascript crawl" (forum threads). I am also discussing this on the Google Webmaster Help forum to find if it's some kind of update to Googlebot. http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread/thread/2c9d5de798f11cc1 Thanks, Ram
I think it would be difficult to find definitive proof either way. But, my gut feeling is that since javascript is client side, G can easily run it. /*tom*/
G can "read" the javascript and if it spots something like a title, link, or bold code it would "read" it as if it was html. But it will not execute/process javascript
One of the Web sites I help run has "chat" feature referenced in a javascript file. The googlebot, on many occasions, has initiated (by itself) a chat with me while spidering the javascript. I tried chatting back, but the googlebot had nothing to say.
I don't think that Google runs Javascript programs. It probably can read but it does not execute it. Any link you have embedded in a javascript program will not be visited or counted by the Google bot, so I have been told.