SEO: Navigation Menu

WEB DESIGN: USING TEXT IN LINKS

Google's web design guidelines state:

Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

In the above short guideline, Google uses the phrase "text link" twice. So you'd better believe that it's important for search engine optimization.

Well, the fact is that the Google crawler can only understand text. If you place your links in flash, the Google crawler will not "see" it. In other words, Google cannot use a flash navigation menu to navigate from page to page on your website.

There is something called "PageRank" (PR) that Google calculates for each web page, and the value of PR is used in their ranking algorithm. The value of PR for a page is calculated based on links that the web page receives - both from other pages on the same site as well as pages in somebody else's website. So if Google cannot see your links, then your PR is affected, and it is harder to get a high ranking.