Sorry if this is the nth time that this question is asked here. Tried to search for similar threads but can't find any.

Am I right to believe that the search engines basically read a webpage by reading the page's source code (if we click the View>Page Source of the browser)? And if a page has a dynamic content, stored in a database and use some script to retrieve the content to display in brower and content can't be seen in the page source code, then search engines can't read this content?

Thanks for any comment.

Whatever YOU can see in the source code is exactly what the search engine user agent will see.

If you can't read the content, neither can the SEs

Thanks for clearing that up and quickly, too. Okay, so even if I can read the content on the browser but can't view it in source code, the content is pretty useless?

I am not a programmer but I've been asked about AJAX-driven sites where the texts/content are generated from an AJAX script and contents aren't viewed in the pagesource. So basically, this kind of sites aren't good for SEO?

Okay, so even if I can read the content on the browser but can't view it in source code, the content is pretty useless?

For natural search marketing, Yes, it's useless.
It's also useless for a lot of accessibilty devices as well.

The only way to deal with them is the same way you have to deal with all Flash sites. You have to provide a parallel site and redirect javascript enabled UAs to the AJAX version.

Is the following site done using AJAX? Just a guess from examples I have seen... im no expert!

http://www.bbc.co.uk

Google seems to index all the content in there.

Is the following site done using AJAX

Nope, it's a show/hide tabbox.

Originally Posted by carleasing2007

Thanks for clearing that up and quickly, too. Okay, so even if I can read the content on the browser but can't view it in source code, the content is pretty useless?

Sometimes. Talk about unhelpful answers, right? There are ways you can show something in a browser, and have it be visible to search engines. If it's in the page source, one of those ways was used.

Originally Posted by carleasing2007

I am not a programmer but I've been asked about AJAX-driven sites where the texts/content are generated from an AJAX script and contents aren't viewed in the pagesource. So basically, this kind of sites aren't good for SEO?

AJAX is only one ways of taking information from a database and putting it into a web page. The difference between this and, say, php or asp, is that ajax "runs" on the client machine, in its browser, using javascript, whereas php and asp run on the server, before being sent down to the client. Since googlebot is a robot, and not a browser, this makes all the difference in the world.

Thanks for all your info. Really appreciated. I have it sorted out now in my half-brain.