SEO. Does google + other search engines index links in <noscript> tags?

Question

I have several drop-down menus that allow users to find pages on my site by selecting options from several drop-down menus:

eg. Car color, year

This will create a link like: mysite.xyz/blue/2010/

The only problem is that this link is dynamically compiled with Javascript, I also had to collect every possible combination of drop-down lists into a list, for example:

<noscript> No javascript enabled? Here are all the links: <a href='mysite.xyz/blue/2009/'>mysite.xyz/blue/2009/</a> <a href='mysite.xyz/blue/2010/'>mysite.xyz/blue/2010/</a> <a href='mysite.xyz/red/2009/'>mysite.xyz/red/2009/</a> <a href='mysite.xyz/red/2010/'>mysite.xyz/red/2010/</a> </noscript> 

My question is: if I put them in a tag like this, will I be punished or something on search engines like Google? I already did this for some navigational materials that required displacement, etc. However, now I would list the entire list of links here. I want to provide them here, moreso so that Google can actually index my pages, but for those who don't have javascript, they can also navigate.

Your thoughts? Also .. although I have some links that seem to have been indexed, I am NOT 100% SURE, so I ask: P

Answer 1

If noscript is an alternative to javascript, then it should be fine, I think, but Google is trying to detect fish seo and can punish it, so it's best to avoid this whenever possible.

In your case, consider spending some time creating a dropdown menu so that you can have links on the page in a list item and use javascript + css to simulate a dropdown menu so that you don’t need to use the noscript tag.

Answer 2

Ten years ago, I made my site using image links for internal navigation (this was when CSS was brand new and HTML4 Transitional was normal). Then I added textual navigation links at the bottom of the page.

I believe that this (and your idea) is a fairly common method, which, unless you really try to do something sketchy, Google et al should interpret correctly.

Answer 3

I think the noscript tag does not matter, but having a giant list of link links can make their algorithms think you're doing some kind of fish SEO. Like having a wall of keywords.

Answer 4

Google (or anyone else) will index them, and until you are going to overboard with a bunch of BS links, I don't see a problem. Although from an SEO perspective, it is not good to create menus from javascript or flash. I could look for an alternative that uses anchor tags with some CSS to dress it up.