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Noscript tag, JavaScript block warning and Google Penalty

I use the noscript tag to show a warning when users have JavaScript turned off or use script blocking plugins such as Noscript. A website will not function properly if JavaScript is disabled and users may not understand why it does not work without warning.

After the last Google algorithm was shuffled, I saw that the daily drop in traffic was about 1/3 of what it was in previous months. I also saw pages that ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in SERPS, dropped from the results. After some research into webmaster tools, I noticed that “JavaScript” is listed in the Keywords section of section 16. This makes no sense because the site has nothing to do with JavaScript and the only place this word appears in the text between noscript tags.

Google seems to now include and index content between noscript tags. I do not think this has happened before. Warning - three sentences. I would suggest that having the same three sentences appearing at the top of every single page of a site can have a devastating effect on SEO.

Do you think this could cause SEO problems? And is there any other way to provide a warning to users who have JavaScript disabled that won't be indexed or read by search engines?

+48
javascript seo noscript
Jun 14 '09 at 18:12
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6 answers

Someone on another forum mentioned using an image as a warning. As I see it, this will have three advantages:

  • There will be no irrelevant text for indexing search engines.
  • Code for displaying one image is less cumbersome than a text warning (which is loaded on each page).
  • Tracking can be implemented to determine how many times an image is called to give an idea of ​​how many visitors have JavaScript disabled or blocked.

If you combine this with something like a technique other than noscript mentioned by JP, this would be the best solution possible.

+13
Jun 19 '09 at 23:08
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Put the <noscript> content at the end of your HTML code, and then use CSS to place it at the top of the browser window. Google no longer considers this important.

Qaru uses this technique himself - make a View Source on this page and you will see a warning “works best with JavaScript” at the end of the HTML code that appears at the top of the page when JavaScript is turned off.

+41
Jun 18 '09 at 17:37
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<noscript> not intended for meaningless warnings like:

<noscript>
Oh no! You do not have built-in JavaScript! If you do not enable JS, you are doomed. [Long explanation of how to enable JS in every browser ever] </noscript>

This meant that you were providing as much content as possible, as well as a polite mention that enabling JS would provide access to some additional features. You will find that basically every popular site follows this guide.

+23
Jun 14 '09 at 18:23
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I don't think using <noscript> is a good idea. I heard that it is ineffective when the client is behind a JavaScript-blocked firewall. If JavaScript is enabled in the client’s browser, the <noscript> tag will not be activated, because with regard to the browser, JavaScript is fully operational inside the document ...

The best IMO method is to contain all the potential "noscript" content written by JavaScript.

Here is a very simple example:

 ... <body> <script> document.body.className += ' js-enabled'; </script> <div id="noscript"> Welcome... here some content... </div>

And inside your StyleSheet:

 body.js-enabled #noscript { display: none; }


Additional Information:

+20
Jun 14 '09 at 18:45
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I just wanted to post an interesting tidbit related to this. For my site, I did something similar to using stack overflow, but with the addition of a “learn more” link, since my users are not as technical as this site.

The interesting part is that after people refused the solution, my solution removed the noscript tag, instead of hiding div messages with javascript instead. But I found that if firefox is waiting for its main password, this hiding of the message is interrupted, so I think I will return to noscript.

+3
Aug 03 '10 at 3:10
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If you choose a solution based on replacing the contents of the div (if js is enabled, then the contents of the div will be updated) and not using the noscript tag, be careful about how Google views this practice:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66353

I'm not sure that Google will consider it deceptive, but this is something for further study and research. Here is another stackoverflow post about this: google noscript snapshot, safe way

+1
Nov 01
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