Complete Guide To Optimizing JavaScript Content For SEO
Learn how Google Search processes JavaScript and what to optimize to make JavaScript-powered web apps discoverable.
Complete Guide To Optimizing JavaScript Content For SEO
JavaScript is an important part of the web platform, providing many features that turn the web into a powerful application platform. Making JavaScript-powered web applications discoverable via Google Search helps you find new users and re-engage existing users as they search for the content your web app offers. However, Google Search runs JavaScript with an evergreen version of Chromium; there are a few things you can optimize.
Google processes JavaScript web apps in 3 main phases:
- Crawling
- Rendering
- Indexing
What is JavaScript?
JavaScript is a programming language for the web that runs locally within your browser, used to make web pages come to life. For example, it is used to deliver notifications, personalize websites, automatically pull in content updates, or load new content as you almost reach the bottom of a page.
Advancements in Google’s ability to render JavaScript content?
Search engines treat JavaScript content on a website differently from typical HTML content and render it separately. Use of JavaScript on the web increases due to the number of features it makes possible; it is important to understand how search engines view this content and optimize for this.
Why JavaScript Can Be A Problem
Google can’t see key parts of your content. And if your site heavily relies on JavaScript to load critical information, search engines may skip over it. What looks great to users may appear incomplete or even blank to crawlers, especially those powered by LLMs.
This is where many well-designed, feature-rich sites fail. JavaScript rendering introduces a significant disconnect between the visibility and discoverability of your content. And if you’re depending on AI-powered search engines to drive traffic, it gets worse.
JavaScript need to be downloaded and executed to parse the content, taking more resources than the bot parsing content in HTML.
Most websites would use some JavaScript. However, if your website needs JavaScript to load important content, which is crucial for the page, then it might be considered a risk.
Remember, not every search engine renders JavaScript, and this is increasingly important in the era of generative search engines, very few of which render JavaScript.
Diagnosing A Problem
Investigating the effect of JavaScript rendering that might have on the site. Turning off the JavaScript and seeing what content remains and what is still interactive without it is important.
- Check the Google Search Console
Using Google Search Console URL Inspection tools and looking at the rendered HTML.
If the content is present in the rendered HTML, then Google should be able to read the content.
- Check Chrome Browser
Go to “View Source” in Chrome to see what the pre-rendered HTML looks like.
If the content is all there, then you don’t need to worry any further.
If it is not, then use the Developer Tools in Chrome for further diagnostics.
Look in the “Elements” tab.
- Check the robots.txt
Check your robots.txt file to see if there are any JavaScript files blocked, preventing the bots, especially, from accessing the page content.
- JavaScript is a significant part of the modern web, however.
Ensure that websites use JavaScript so that both popular and emerging search engines can find and read our content.
Use of client-side rendering or server-side rendering
Client-side rendering uses a browser for rendering the JavaScript of a page.
The HTML code and JavaScript files are sent by the server in response to a page being viewed. After downloading the files, the browser uses JavaScript to create the content.
This differs from server-side rendering, in which the server renders the content before sending it to the browser along with the information that has been provided.
Is the main content able to be rendered without JavaScript
The main content needs to be possible to parse without JavaScript rendering.
This is the safest way to ensure that bots can access the content.
Use of JavaScript Links
Links can be crawled easily by the search bots.
Google states that it can’t reliably extract URLs from <a> elements that don’t have an href attribute or other tags performing links due to script events.
It’s not just Google that you need to be conscious of. It’s always better to err on the side of making your links easy to follow.
Final Thoughts
If the website relied heavily on JavaScript to load content, leading to challenges in communicating information to some search engines.
Google is much better at rendering JavaScript-heavy sites than it used to be, but the SEO playing field is not just Google.
To check website performance in search platforms beyond Google, change how your website renders content, and ensure your main content is in HTML.
