Does the Google spider render JavaScript?

Question

Does the Google spider knows how to render JavaScript, or only HTML?

Answer 1

Apparently it does, some, according to Matt Cutts:

"For a while, we were scanning within JavaScript, and we were looking for links. Google has gotten smarter about JavaScript and can execute some JavaScript. I wouldn't say that we execute all JavaScript, so there are some conditions in which we don't execute JavaScript. Certainly there are some common, well-known JavaScript things like Google Analytics, which you wouldn't even want to execute because you wouldn't want to try to generate phantom visits from Googlebot into your Google Analytics".

Answer 2

You mean interpret JavaScript? It does request the JavaScript files.

And I'm pretty sure it does, to some degree.

T.J. Crowder's answer confirms this.

Answer 3

It does, partly, as a quick Google search reveals:
http://blogs.forbes.com/velocity/2010/06/25/google-isnt-just-reading-your-links-its-now-running-your-code/

Still Google is relatively quiet on what the bot exactly understands.