In my previous post on the DNNMenu and SEO, I discussed testing user-agent strings and creating custom browser detection files.  As part of my testing I created a simple web-app that allows you to validate your browser capabilities.  By navigating to the test site, you can see exactly which features are enabled for your specific browser.  To alter how ASP.Net reports the capabilities for a specific user agent, create a custom .browser file and add it to the App_Browsers folder in your website.  See MSDN for a complete discussion of the browser definition file format.

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During the OpenForce Conference, I heard from several designers that the DNNMenu had problems with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) because it rendered menu items that used JavaScript for navigation.  While I assured them that this was not the case and that the menu rendered a down-level version for search bots, I thought I would perform further testing and document the exact behavior.  In the process, I found that while the DNNMenu performed as expected, ASP.Net did not.

To observe the behavior of the menu, I used Firefox 3 with the User Agent Switcher plug-in.  This plug-in allows you to simulate any user agent string you wish.  For testing purposes you can find a complete list of user agent strings at useragentstring.com.