From an email I just sent out…
Getting pages indexed is not usually a big problem. Typically if you have issues w/ it its due to either complicated URLs with way too many parameters (common on e-com sites) or lack of good basic text-link navigation and/or site map. A hugely unpopular site might also have issues – i.e. a site with only a couple inbound links – search engines just won’t care about it enough to index deeply.
Generally if I find a site with an indexing problem the resolution is fairly evident – typically a navigation issue. Ranking high is the real challenge. The CSS likely just cleaned up the navigation alot. Spiders don’t follow javascript links, so often when people move to CSS they do away with javascript dropdown menus that block the interior pages from a spider and move over to CSS and cleaner HTML that is spider-friendly. A nice added benefit.
I’m going to paste into my blog 🙂 I write so much in emails yet never update that friggin’ blog. Time to kill two birds with one stone!