Google likes javascript.

[Darksat]

A little think I noticed when doing SEO was that google likes a bit of javascript on the page.
generally I like to have 2-3 JS include files.
Just a little tip for you.

[solidghost]

I thought Googlebot doesnt understand javascripts
And they dont read the js files right?

[Darksat]

Thats right,(although they are working on it) but since most modern sites have at least some javascript google gives those sites a little more weight in the serps.
The algo is designed to return relevant results, they use a system to tweak the algo thats like genetic engineering for algos.

[sacx13]

Is already understand javascript. I made a page with menu's in javascript and no other anchor or etc ... and google indexed the whole site !!!!!

Regards

[Darksat]

Yeah but its still far from perfect.
they can index some JS menues, but have problems with most of them.

[solidghost]

Ok, how do we know which javascript google understands?

[Darksat]

As a rule take it that they probably dont, even if they do, just to be on the safe side.
They are still testing it.

[neutron2k]

i'd liek to see some proof of this

[Darksat]

Well google has js files in its cache
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=de&as_qdr=all&q=href+filetype%3Ajs
and as for affecting serps, I saw a dramatic increase in my rankings when I included a few JS files.

plus there are posts on a few blogs and forums like this.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=3352

[solidghost]

What is clean urls ?? 

[Darksat]

A straight link either with a http:// start or some other links that dont have session variables and are located in the base directory.

[trace]

Thanks for the tip!

I'd err on the side of caution and wait until another update pases before I make any changes though, oftent hese little tings don't stay positive for any long length of tiem.

[Darksat]

Actually its been something they have been doing for a while.

[neutron2k]

Google will have js files in their cache because they are a dependance of a web page it is indeing and the files are downloaded. Wether they are actually read and given ranking is another matter.

as for your update, its probably just co-incidence that you had a boost in rankings.  Google takes weeks to get updated pages into the serps, if not months (depending on how high your pr is).  I very much doubt JS actually effects anything.  Theres no way an automated system could understand any of it as its all going to be custom written and I know for a fact that JS code is excluded from a pages source when google indexs.

Also, Theres no point in assigning higher ranking to a site that uses JS because the serps are supposed to be about finding the most relevant information for a users search critieria and the inclusion of js is neither here nor there.

[Darksat]

Actually the way they assign rankings and weight factors is based on a number of factors, they calcualte keyword density, noun and verb density, the ammount of H1, H2, Bold, Italic, Etc
Including javascript is not really that much of a jump, google has been working on indexing javascript for a long time, as well as flash, but the technical problems neutron have described are why it is taking so long and its still only experimental.
As for the ammount of javascript I was SEOing a site that had a dynamic date so google crawled it every day cause of the "fresh content"
I did some testing on the ammount of JS include files and yes it did make a noticable and measurable affect on the rankings, I tested it for quite a while.
If a site has javascript it is more likely to be newer and more advanced than a static HTML site, so it makes sense to give it a slight serps boost.