Does GoogleBot read and attempt to understand links in Javascript? Yes.
Google's Webmaster Tools, which I love (and obsess over,) provides a table with all crawl errors GoogleBot encountered on your site. When viewing the Not Found (404) errors, I noticed some interesting URLs listed. GoogleBot reported a missing page with the URL http://www.homeandstone.com/brand:wet. The only place I used that type of construct in my URLs (/brand:wet) is in the Bathroom Vanity Finder, where I'll use a this URL - http://www.homeandstone.com/shop/bathroom-vanities.cfm/all:vanities/brand:wet - to show only vanities by the brand Wet Style.
I combed through every link in the website, and there was no link to just /brand:wet. So where did GoogleBot get the link from?
When we built the vanity finder, our goal was to give our customers the ability to shop for vanities any way they wanted, rather than forcing them to use our category hierarchy. To do this, we used Ajax technology (built by me!) to update the product listing based on the current selections in the finder. So as you browse, you are always seeing a list that is in sync with your selections, rather than having to submit a form to update the product listing.
The only exception is the vanities homepage, which has a graphic along with a few featured vanities, and a links to shop by brand. When you click on a link on this page, you are taken to a products listing page. Same for the finder on the homepage, you do have to submit the form to see the results. On subsequent pages, it will update as you select.
Say you choose a brand. The product listing page will show all vanities from that brand. As you make selections in the finder, these selections apply on top of the brand, so for example, if you choose the brand Wet, and then select '31" - 36"' for Size, the product listing updates with all matching vanities only from Wet. There is a drop-down of brands in the finder, so you can update the brand independently of other selections.
In order to keep that brand setting, there is a variable "brandURL" that saves the current brand selected. When you click on a link that includes a brand selection (the "/brand:" part,) the server sets the brandURL variable to... thats right, "/brand:wet"!
Being that this is the only place such a link appears, I believe that the GoogleBot reads the Javascript, sees the variable with "URL" as part of its name, and assumes (wrongly,) that its a URL used somewhere.
Item of the Day: Suneli Taranto 8033-CH - Complete Bathroom Vanity Set
