I want my developers to create an html drop down menu on my site. What methods are used to do this and which is best for search engines?

There are several methods to create an html drop down menu (also called a fly-out menu) on a site. The three main ways are:

• Flash menus
• javascript drop down menu
• CSS drop down menu

Flash menus
Flash menus are the poorest choice as search engine friendly drop down menus. While search engines have gotten better at reading links and text in Flash, they still have trouble with it. Because of this, you should not use Flash menus for navigation on a site.

JavaScript drop down menu
JavaScript is the most popular way to create drop down menu code. But, with JavaScript, there is a right way to create an SEO friendly JavaScript drop down menu and a wrong way. If you are not familiar with programming, the easiest way to tell a good JavaScript drop down menu from a bad JavaScript drop down menu is to look for the code “href.” If the JavaScript drop down menu code your developer wants to use contains href codes, then it is the kind of JavaScript a search engine can follow. If the href codes are not there, then a search engine will not be able to follow the links in the drop down menu.

There is one issue, though, with the search engine friendly JavaScript. The code used can be complicated and, the more complicated the code, the more chances you have that a search engine robot will fail while trying to decipher that code.

CSS drop down menu
The best option is to use a CSS drop down menu. To a search engine, the links in the code appear to be no different than normal links. The CSS drop down menu effect is done with styles on the style sheet, meaning that much of the code that powers the drop down effect is not even on the page.

Adding an html drop down menu to your site can be an excellent way to give your visitors more options without taking up additional space. Just make sure that your drop down menu code is created so that search engines can help visitors find you in the first place.