Ajax - any good tutorials?
 

Just wondering if you know of any good Ajax tutorials that show you how to do a basic tabbed box of info.

Eg a box that has:

Latest posts | Most Read | Mosted Commented

The sql queries are easy enough - but I'd like to find an ajax solution where the tabs _only_ load the data (ie make the call to the database) if the tab is clicked on. As I feel this is more efficient and the server is only hit with a query when someone is actually interested in that data.

Just wondering if you guys have come a cross a good example/tutorial I could use :-D

There are a couple of tutorials below. I don't know how good they are :-) ! I'm not endorsing them.

• Building tabbed content.
• Ajax tabs content.

Isn't AJAX a search engine nightmare?

Atleast from what I've heard it is, but IMO a search engine ranking can get you visitors but good rich content (such is the way of AJAX) will keep the visitors coming, word of mouth is cheap and good advertisement.

Although AJAX can be used for things non-related to a search engine such as

- Form validation
- Cool little shoutboxes
- Slide shows
- Can't think of much more, but I know there is more.

It can be a search engine nightmare, if you design things wrong. What was happening was individuals were making 100% AJAX driven sites, with no way to show a given page to a friend or for search-bots to access the site. Eventually these things cleared up, and the problem has regressed. Though it is a combination of design and implementation that, when combined, will kill your site in the listings quite effectively.

Thanks WH. I think the ajax code will be easy enough, it's just implementing that with php/mysql that may present a problem lol. I'll post again if I get stuck if that's ok!

Cheers everyone else for the comments - in this case, it's probably a good idea that search engines will ignore the content as it will just be used to sort links to popular and most read threads :)