Obfuscated script tag in Google Website Optimizer script

Question

On a website I found the following code:

<!-- Google Website Optimizer Conversion Script -->
<script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
if(typeof(_gat)!='object')document.write('<sc'+'ript src="http'+
(document.location.protocol=='https:'?'s://ssl':'://www')+
'.google-analytics.com/ga.js"></sc'+'ript>')
// ]]></script>

I am wondering why the script tag is concatenated from two parts: '<sc'+'ript src="http' .. Is that standard code from Google (the current code they supply looks different - maybe old code) ? Or did the webmasters customize it? What could have been the reason to do so?

Answer 1

It is separated in two parts so browser's HTML parser won't pick it up and treat it as closing (explicitly or implicitly) tag for current <script> when this JavaScript is inserted in user's HTML.

It is standard practice for any inline JavaScript that have strings <script> or </script> in it and, obviously, it is not needed when you work with JavaScript placed in separate files.