Web Design Question

is google able to read javascript that is embedded in a page?

What do you mean? The content produced by javascript? Such as popups and tabbed content? View the page in FF with javascript  disabled if you can see it,then google spiders can.

no like, you hover over a menu item, and the contents of a div will change based on what link you hover over.

not a tab, so much as switching out content.

like I said, disable javascript when you visit the page, that's how the bots will see it.

usually the content will just be displayed wildly.

it displays "you either have javascript disabled or need to download the latest javascript blah blah blah blah..." in <noscript> tags ._.

I have tabs later on in the site that use jquery so it's an issue if someone visits the site with js disabled

Ya.

lol, can't say more than that. Though usually the tabs will display even with javascript disabled, just stacked divs

notice: http://nettuts.s3.amazonaws.com/042_jQueryUITabs/demo/index.html

visit that, disable javascript. The hidden tabs will just stack under one another and the tabs will direct link to their position on the page.

I'm using a different system, and they don't display without JS enabled :/

the main page works fine without JS, as all that is affected is the little content switcher (which isn't entirely necessary for page navigation) but the tabs on later pages are...