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Skip Navigation Links and Search Engine Indexing

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From: Terence de Giere
Date: Feb 11, 2002 9:48AM

>
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RE: Skip Navigation Links and Search Engine Indexing

I sent the following message to the Google suggestions email address. So
they say, they will try to respond individually to each request. Let's
see what happens.

"RE: Accessibility and Indexing - Section 508 Skip Navigation Links

A discussion has arisen on the WebAim accessibility forum about
information appearing in search engines that nobody wants indexed.
Specifically the Federal Government's Section 508 rules require that
repetitive navigation links have a mechanism for being skipped over by
users of assistive technology such as screen readers and audio browsers
so they can quickly get to the page content quickly without having to
repetitively cycle through them on every page. Most of these users will
be legally blind. Many Web sites are now putting such links in their
pages. These links are being indexed by Google.

A link, or an image with alternate text within a link to a bookmark
further down the page is the typical method of dealing with the Section
508 requirement. The text involved is usually one of several possibilities:

* Skip over navigation links
* Skip navigation links
* Skip navigation bar
* Skip navigation
* Skip to content
* Skip over

There may be other ways this is done as well but the above are the
typical text strings used. Capitalization of the text varies.

Skipping navigation links is also a subject to be found in Web pages
dealing with the subject of accessibility.

Typically though, the phrases used to provide a skip navigation link are
alternate text in an image that is inside a link found close to the
beginning of the page, and that is not a heading. It may also be a
direct link with link text at the beginning or near the beginning of the
page, also not a heading. Some pages may contain multiple skip
navigation links, to skip over blocks of navigation. Web designers and
marketers do not want this phrase to be indexed, unless of course that
is the subject, or at least, a subject under discussion in the Web page.

Because these links will proliferate over time as the government's
accessibility requirement is met by more sites, could you find a way to
reduce the indexing of such links? This would allow more of the relevant
information on your search results page to display for the user.

Over this last weekend, the number of pages Google indexed with the
phrase "skip navigation" increased by about 1,000. Some developers seem
to be coming up with interesting ways to avoid getting the phrase
indexed, for example, by creating an unusual table structure in the Web
page that puts the link further down the page while keeping the
appearance of the page essentially the same. But jumping through hoops
like this is one of the methods by which accessibility in Web pages may
be compromised, since it may create odd structures a non sighted user
has to figure out, depending on the technology they are using to access
the page.

Regards,

Terence de Giere
<EMAIL REMOVED> "




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