Google index external HTML data sets?

Question

I know one of the workarounds to have Google properly index
dynamic content is to use HTML data sets, but I'm unclear about one
thing. Does this only work if you have the HTML data set table on
the same page you use it with, or does it also work with external
HTML data sets?
For instance, will Google have a problem indexing if I use a
external HTML data set like:
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
var educationLinks = new
Spry.Data.HTMLDataSet("links/educationLinks.htm",
"educationLinks");
//-->
</script>
<div spry:region="educationLinks" id="linksContainer"
class="SpryHiddenRegion">
<ul spry:repeatchildren="educationLinks"
class="unorderedLinkList">
<li><a href="{url}"
target="_blank">{name}</a> - {description}</li>
</ul>
<!-- end #linksContainer -->
</div>

Answer 1

I'm doing the same exact thing using external HTML data sets
instead of XML. It is true that spiders will not index the external
page based on the Spry data you noted. My solution will be to
create a sitemap.xml page and submit it to the search engines. That
sitemap.xml file will contain all the pages in your site and the
spiders will use it as a central point to crawl all of those pages
specified within. So, I will just include my externally referenced
files in the sitemap.xml file.
Checkout
http://www.sitemap.org for more
information on that.