JavaScript SEO

Making sure Google can read a site that builds its pages inside the browser, instead of storing an empty page with none of your words in it.

Also known as SEO for JavaScript sites rendering and SEO client-side rendering SEO

Definition

JavaScript SEO is the work of making sure Google can read a site that builds its own pages inside the browser. Plenty of modern sites are built this way. The page arrives almost empty, and code then fills in the words, the prices and the photos a second later.

That is where the trouble starts. Google sends a small program to fetch your page, and it gets whatever the server hands over first. If the server hands over an empty shell, an empty shell is what gets stored. Your text is there for people and missing for the search engine. Shops have launched a handsome new site and watched their visits halve inside a month for exactly this reason.

Rendering is the plain word for filling that shell in. A visitor's phone does it in about a second. Google does it too, but on a later pass, and it never promises when. On a large catalogue that gap can mean weeks before a product page shows up in results. Sometimes the page never shows up at all.

The repair is ordinary, not exotic. The server can send the finished words together with the page, which developers call server-side rendering or pre-rendering. Same design, same site, only the page arrives complete. It adds a little to the build and it protects the visits you already pay for. Linkysoft treats that as part of a web application project rather than an extra line on the invoice.

So here is the exact question to ask before you sign anything. When Google asks for this page, does the reply already contain the text, or does the text appear only after the code runs? Ask for the answer in writing. A supplier who understands the question answers it in one sentence. One who talks around it has also told you something.

You can check a live site yourself in half a minute. Open the page, right-click, choose view page source, and look in that window for a sentence you can see on the screen. If the sentence is not there, Google is doing extra work to find your words, and money spent on search work is leaking away. Linkysoft raises this in the first meeting for any new website, because deciding now costs far less than rescuing a launch later.

Questions about JavaScript SEO

Does Google really ignore JavaScript?
No, it runs it, but usually on a second visit that can come days later. Anything only the code produces waits in a queue, and on a large site some pages wait a long time.
How can I check if my site has this problem?
Open the page, view the page source, and search for a sentence you can see on the screen. If the sentence is missing from the source, your words arrive after the page and Google has to work to find them.
Do I have to rebuild the whole site to fix it?
Usually not. Most fixes change how the pages are delivered, not how they look. A developer can switch on server-side rendering or prepare the important pages in advance and leave the design alone.
Is a one-page website bad for search?
Not by itself. It becomes a problem when each subject has no address of its own. Give every subject a real page with its own link and its own title, and search engines can send people straight to it.

Still not sure how this applies to your project?

Tell us what you are building and we will answer in plain language.