Javascript SEO Best Practices

Gone are the days when boring and static pages were ranked higher on the Google Search engine. Today, it’s not just about creating a website but finding more ways to make it more interactive and alluring. And to be precise, Javascript turns out to be the sure-shot way to do so. It has been observed that Javascript has the potential to make any boring website more interactive and attention-grabbing.

However, at the same time, there is one loophole: Javascript has the potential to kill any website’s SEO when not executed in the right manner. It’s time to outdo yourself, time to consider some of the best Javascript SEO best practices to take into account.

Javascript and SEO: Do they have any chemistry?

I assure you that the moment “Javascript” as a word pops in front of SEO professionals, they end up getting a severe headache, and sometimes it’s a migraine (even worse). If we take a step back, maybe in 2008, Google was unable to crawl and render seamlessly through the websites that were built using Javascript technology. As a result, the use of Javascript began to slow down. Fortunately, the tech space keeps on evolving, and so do we. Today, Google assures that it will treat Javascript-based websites no differently than others.

In fact, the tech giant announced they have started using the latest version of Google Chrome for rendering web pages and executing Javascript, StyleSheets, and the list goes on.

In addition to this, they will keep sharing more information and updates to support all the latest features and functionalities and make Javascript-based websites rank significantly.

So now you know what Javascript SEO is. Well, it’s more or less like technical SEO, but to ensure that all the Javascript-based websites turn out to be Google-friendly and easy to index. And of course, they rank higher easily than other available alternatives.

Now let’s take a deep dive into some technicalities. It’s time to find out how Google works especially on Javascript-based websites. Indexing pages are something Google keeps doing every now and then. What happens here is that several microservices enroll together to ensure that all the information is truly and thoroughly shared within the space. So what exactly happens under the hood is that the crawler sends a GET request, which is being sent to the server, and waits for its response.

Now let’s see how the server responds. It doesn’t say yes or no, but with building blocks such as HTML files, CSS files, and Javascript files. As soon as the server responds, the processing begins.

The procedure includes different systems working together at the same time. Say, for example,

• The search engine looks for different links and resources using the <a> tags and Href attributes.
• All the files that are required to build the page can be seamlessly cached by Google. So you can leave all this fetching to the search engine.
• The duplicate elimination procedure is given more significance here.
• You will know what directives to follow.

After all this is done, every downloaded page is sent to the Render Queue. This is pretty time-consuming. So don’t even expect any kind of accurate estimation. Finally, the time comes when the page is rendered. This is most often done using a headless Chrome browser.

So where exactly does the issue lie, you must be wondering?

How Does Javascript Affect SEO?

#1 Website Navigation

When we use Javascript technology, the links in the navigation are not in accordance with the predetermined web standards. As a result, Google is unable to find out what lies within the website. So no matter how unique and robust internal pages you tend to develop, things won’t work properly.

In addition to this, Google won’t be able to find clear relations between the pages of the website.

#2 Inappropriate Lazy Load Implementation

The next issue to take into account is lazy loading. As the name implies, it significantly decreases the overall page load time. Lazy loading is beneficial in a plethora of ways, but if it is implemented incorrectly, things might not work out in your favor. For example, the content under lazy loading might not be crawled or found by Google. And therefore, there is no scope for its ranking.

#3 Site Speed issues

Now this one is quite a number, I must say! In today’s fast-pacing times, everyone wants a website to open within a span of 3 seconds or less. And when speaking of Javascript, JavaScript or CSS files or any other kind of render-blocking resources tend to slow down the overall speed of the site. As a result, Google won’t even bother to crawl and index such pages. So what to do if you don’t want to hamper the core web ital metrics?

Further below, I would like to mention some of the best Javascript SEO practices that every developer must take into account while conducting a Javascript development project.

Best Javascript SEO Practices

#1 Avoid the Search Engines

The first and foremost step that anyone could take to make their Javascript websites rank higher is by avoiding search engines. You see, search engines need to be able to thoroughly understand what exactly your website is all about and whether they are in sync with the predetermined crawling and indexing guidelines. If they are, then it’s completely good for you, but somehow if they don’t, then you need to worry a bit.

So what can be done here is to check if the website’s pages can be rendered separately. And come up with different ways to make them SEO friendly. Here, you must consider a reliable development company that has a knack for developing the best possible outcomes for its valued clients. In addition, try using different tools such as Screaming Frog and Google Search Console.

#2 Server-Side Rendering

Another interesting method to take into account is server-side rendering. Here, each web page is retrieved, codes are launched and developers can easily assess the design and structure of the page. Now there is no cookie-cutter approach: you have to consider only server-side rendering. As you can see, rendering can happen from the client side or server side or dynamic. Check out this code.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Example of Server Side Rendering Website</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Demo Website</h1>
    <p>This is an example of a new SSR website</p>
    <p>This is just a demo website.html</p>
  </body>
</html>

The only difference is when you conduct client-side rendering, the procedure is completed through the browser, whereas dynamic rendering means results can be achieved on the third-party server. Basically, pages can be rendered real quick and as a result, your website gets ranked seamlessly.

#3 404 Errors in Single-Page Apps

Another aspect to consider in Javascript SEO practices is taking care of 404 errors, especially when developing single-page applications. Instead of considering 404 errors, why not redirect to a not found page?

fetch(`/api/items/${itemId}`)
.then(response => response.json())
.then(item => {
  if (items.exists) {
    showItem(item); 
  } else {
    window.location.href = '/not-found';
  }
})