XML, AJAX and SEO

[harbingerOTV]

So I was working on this site that is all AJAX and the content is loaded from XML pages. When viewing the source of any page, all you see is the content that is placed there for viewers without javascript since all the "real" content is loaded into a div on the index page.

SO is there any way for spiders to read any other content in the site? can they follow links like:

<a href="javascript('pageName.xml', 'targetDiv');">Link</a>

to actually find the xml content?

The way I see it is that spiders will only see the noscript content of the index page. If that is the case, is AJAX just horrible for SEO purposes?

[Basscyst]

Hmm, well, you could define the href as a link to the xml page and then associate an xslt styelsheet with the xml data. Use onclick to handle the function call and return false. Not only would this allow the search engines to index it, it would also allow users with javascript disabled to view the data, killing two birds with one stone. Just a thought.