Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Can search engines find the text in a drop down menu? Is it better to have more links or a drop down menu?
-
Can search engines find the text in a drop down menu?
-
Both Ryans are spot on. If you are not sure if it is a CSS coded menu or not, I would suggest posting the URL to your site so one of us can tell you.
-
if you don't want search engines to see the links, for example if you are concerned about too many links on the page, then put the links in a JavaScript file and block it with robots.txt
Search engines can crawl regular javascript, whether they do or not, and how this will impact your site is not known.
-
It truly depends on how it is coded.
This isn't perfect but a pretty good idea is, go to your page, right-click and choose View Source. Can you see your menu list in the code? If you can, then Google can too. If you can't, then Google may or may not be able to see it, depending on how it is coded.
If you can share a URL of your site or another site with the exact same menu system, I can offer more information.
-
If your dropdown is powered by...
-
CSS: Yes, they can see it.
-
Javascrip:. Most likely yes.
-
Flash: Almost definitely not.
-
-
If it is coded correctly then search engines can and will read the links in the dropdown menu.
-
I'm not sure what a form select is. I'm referring to the type of drop down menu that appears when you hover over the word/category title you're interested in.
-
Yes, thanks!
-
Are you referring to a mouseover menu, or a form select?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My website have h1 tags , but still crawlers can't find them?
crawlers can't crawl my meta description and h1 tags even when they are present.
On-Page Optimization | | Green_Beauty0 -
Less Tags better for SEO?
I am currently reviewing my strategy when it comes to categories and tags on my site. Having been no-indexed for some time, and having many tags with just one entry I am thinking that this is not optimal for SEO purposes. This is what I am planning: Categories - Change these to Index, but only after adding a hundred words or so by way of introduction (see this example - https://www.besthostnews.com/news/hosting/a-small-orange-news/). With the categories I am thinking of highlighting key articles as well to improve link juice distribution to older articles that are important. Tags - About half my tags have only 1 entry, with a few more just having 2 entries. I am thinking of deleting all tags with just one entry, and trying to merge those with just two or 3 entries where it makes sense to do so. I will keep these as no-index, but I think this will mean more optimal distribution of link juice within the site. I would appreciate your thoughts \ suggestions on the best practices here.
On-Page Optimization | | TheWebMastercom0 -
Web Design - Text links better than drop down menus?
Hello So with reading a blog post by Bruce Clay - http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/seo-friendly-web-design/ It reads that it Is best for seo to use text links instead of drop down menus. So I just wanted to ask you opinion.
On-Page Optimization | | Berner0 -
What is on page links?
Hi - i would like to know exactly what an on page link is? i understand the linking system however cant work what exactly what an on page link is? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | OasisLandDevelopment0 -
Help Please! - Anchor Text in the Menu
Hi everyone, I am a SEOMOZ newbie and I have been learning about SEO for a while now whilst working on my site - lockcity.co.uk - I already understood the importance of anchor text but was amazed to learn how google only count the anchor text used in the first link (http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/anchor-text). My questions are - does this rule still apply? and if so do the menus really count as the first link? If I went on this approach, this would make my menus too long for e.g. on my 'Auto Locksmith' page, my targetted keywords are 'Auto Locksmith' but also the town keywords need to be included. I really thought I had this covered on the home page by making sure the anchor text and alt text were keyword relevant to the link, but looks like Ive been missing out on an opportunity. Our business is slightly complicated in that the 25 mile radius we cover includes 4 different regions - therefore I feel like I always have to get these keywords in as well to make sure we get traffic from our area. Thanks for any advice you can give!
On-Page Optimization | | LockCity0 -
What is the best setup for conical Links
Should I have the conical link state: 1. www.autoinsurancefremontca.com 2. www.autoinsurancefremontca.com/index.html 3. autoinsurancefremontca.com Also do you need a conical link on each page if you have more than one page on your site?
On-Page Optimization | | Greenpeak0 -
Text within a Div Crawlable?
Hi, I have a paragraph of text contained within a Div container ( ).. Is this readable by a search engine spider. Or is it better to enclose it within ? Thanks for any feedback.
On-Page Optimization | | IBMEMM0 -
Do you think using accordion text can hurt SEO?
I have a lot of text for my home page. My plan is to a J Query Plugin for accordion text. Does anyone think that this can hurt SEO efforts?
On-Page Optimization | | DTOSI1