Really Solved: Another Common Site Review Problem

Matt Cutts wrote recently of a common site-review problem. Many sites prefer to store links within drop down menus (the “select” element). Unfortunately, this non-standard way of using javascript to link to pages within your site is quite difficult for search engines to spider. (ie: search spiders like GoogleBot have difficulty determining that your javascript code is meant to be interpreted as links).

Here are a few examples:

• http://www.pickwicktea.com/
• http://www.evinrude.com/
• http://www.yoofi.com

Luckily, there is a pretty easily solution to the issue. Start by creating a DIV tag with traditional text links inside representing each of the items you would like to appear in your menu. And then just run the javascript I have included below to transform that DIV tag into a traditional drop down menu. I have tested in FF, IE, and Opera without any difficulty.

On a side note, this is also a far more Accessible method of doing drop down link menus. Because the code itself is simple text links, a screen reader will be able to easily understand and interpret that information to a disabled visitor.

Anyway, here is the sample code…