Moving Java Script to an external file

redgsr · 01-05-2006, 03:56 PM

Does this really help the search engines spider your pages?

Could it lead to a higher page rank?

Is it worth the time?

toddieg · 01-05-2006, 05:10 PM

yes, it's a good practice.
leaves less 'code' for the spider to crawl through, so in that respect, yes it's better.

i doubt it helps w/pagerank.

i think it's definitely worth the time.

**Rankenstein** · 01-06-2006, 02:54 AM

Doing this can reduce a page's file size by over 50% in some cases, and moves your content closer to the top of the page - gets rid of that code bloat.

Johan007 · 01-06-2006, 04:05 PM

Sorry you’re all mostly wrong but I don’t blame you becuase its document like this everywhere!

It doesn’t reduce page loading file size because JS files (unlike CSS) are not cached but reloaded on every page view! It doesn’t help SEO at all unless your JS is massive and I am talking about silly sizes like 300k of it. In fact dynamic sites should possibly think about NOT having an external link to speed up loading because each external link has a ping rate that slows the site down!

However it does make for coding static sites easier

More information can be found here:
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/

Test your own site for speed Optimization here:
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

And the book can be found on amazon.com for $28.78

Will.Spencer · 01-08-2006, 08:56 PM

Johan:

Ah yes, but what if the web browser is not JavaScript-aware. Will it still load the external JavaScript?

I am, of course, referring to Googlebot and his little friends.

Johan007 · 01-09-2006, 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

Johan:

Ah yes, but what if the web browser is not JavaScript-aware. Will it still load the external JavaScript?

I am, of course, referring to Googlebot and his little friends.

Google will not requests the file.

Will.Spencer · 01-09-2006, 03:59 AM

Johan:

Thank you; I have been wondering this!

I doubt that it will help with SERPS, but it will reduce the bandwidth usage from most search engine bots.

Plus, it may help to reduce or avoid Google's 100k page-size limit. (Although they may have raised that limit by now.)

Johan007 · 01-09-2006, 06:02 AM

yeah sure its good practice to do do.