Probably the biggest kerfuffle at SMX advanced this past week was Google’s reversal on how they crawl javascript links, and how they are handling pagerank scuplting.
First let’s look at the javascript linking issue, I agree with Danny Sullivan that this change of them not reccomending using javascript when they originally did is disturbing. What I’d like to see from Google is a clarification on what types of links/implementations they will be crawling, and how long people who where using these methods have to fix them, before they run the risk of incurring a paid link penalty. While we don’t have an official how/why from Google on why they made this change I suspect it’s because too many shoddy web 2.0 programmers use javascript to build mission critical navigation. Without crawling those elements google is missing parts of the web it’s wants access to. And yes using client side code like javascript or AJAX for mission critical elements or navigation does make you a shoddy programmer.
Next lets talk about pagerank sculpting, unless you have seen a noticeable drop in traffic that you can only attribute to pagerank sculpting, I don’t think you need to be rushing out and making any changes. What’s a better course, and one I’m doing, is setting up a few tests on a few different sites trying different combinations and seeing what works for you. If there is any difference in the sculpted vs non sculpted implementations, then it’s time to re-act. Remember using test results from only one site is a dangerous thing. Why did Google make this change, IMHO there are two reasons, first the nofollow was probably cutting them off from content they felt they wanted access to. Secondly I don’t think they were all that keen on you artificially forcing the pagerank around where you wanted it on your website. In my opinion google saw this pagerank sculpting like an actress in a pair of spanx and wearing a push up bra, objects appeared larger than they really were.
That said it’s probably a good idea to brush up on your understanding of Siloing as a natural form of limiting pagerank distribution.
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