Google Spidering Java

I came across a nice piece of javascript code that will create random hyperlinks from a large list. This is done by using the document.write function in a .js file.

The code that is placed in the html file is in the format of:

<script type="text/javascript" src="xlinks.js"></script>

Even though these hyperlinks are displayed to the user in the webbrowser, will google and other search engines able to spider these links?

The short answer is NO ... Google does not execute javascript. A spider simply downloads the HTML file and then tries to make sense of the TEXT that has been received.

Spiders are NOT browsers, they do not see graphics, or scripts. In fact they see exactly the same thing you see when you edit the file with a text editor.

Contrary to some opinions ... Javascript would be discarded.

The reason is that most Javascript would be unexecutable if transferred to another machine. There would be missing data files, wrong paths, and bad document references.

I have several javascript references on my pages ... not one shows up in the cached text of my site.

In addition, I don't think that form Option links are spidered either via dropdown menus, nor are DHTML menu links that are driven by javascript (know that for sure from experience)

I think you are right, the links are not followed ... but the options ARE indexed. Good place to stuff keywords, like one of my competitors who IS ranking well.