AJAX SEO Friendly

[theChronic]

hey folks
i dont really know how AJAX works but i was wondering if it is SEO friendly?

[Angelus]

I think that static .html pages are very friendly, AJAX not really

p.l.u.r.

[theChronic]

techno fan?

[jwalsh]

AJAX itself is a collection of technologies... it would depend on exactly how you are using AJAX on your page.

Googlebot and spiders don't use javascript, so if your using ajax to update content on the website then it wont be spidered.

Ajax is designed primarily to be used to improve user interaction, particularaly in RIA situations where search engines aren't relavent. In the case that you use AJAX in your public areas, you should make sure it degrades properly so users without javascript and the engines have an acceptable experience without the AJAX.

Josh

[vangogh]

As long as you have the JavaScript in external files it should be fine. Spiders have difficulty reading JavaScript, but when you move them to an external file it shouldn't be a problem

It's really a matter of how you code things too. You can write a completely uncrawlable page in html alone. AJAX technologies, specifically the JavaScript part adds a little more complexity, but you should be able to use it in a search engine friendly way.

[motheninja]

the advantage to AJAX is that your page does not have to be reloaded in order to retrieve new data from the server. Soo... lets say you have PHP script takes parameters and spits out some results -- with AJAX that same page/script won't need reloaded. Will the SEs spider the results from your PHP script or your AJAX script? depends. if your PHP script spits out custom results to the same page, SEs probably won't spider those results; if your AJAX script does the same then SEs won't spider the results either.

the difference between the two though, is that AJAX has a bunch of JS code visible to the browser/SE and PHP does not. as others advice, if you move the JS code to an external file, things should be A-OK.

[WebGeek182]

AJAX can be optimized for search if you know what you're doing. It's not so much optimizing the AJAX content itself, but knowing how to combine it with other content and such. For more info, do a Google search fro "AJAX SEO".

[Johan007]

AJAX is similar to DHTML. Simply disable JavaScript and CSS using any developer toolbar. What you see now is what a SE can see and index. AJAX has many technologies and most of them inaccessible and not SE friendly however it does depend on the case so do not dismiss this powerful technology.

[tdd1984]

Originally Posted by theChronic

hey folks
i dont really know how AJAX works but i was wondering if it is SEO friendly?

The best thing to do in a situation like this, is probably to stay away from ajax as much as possible I write multiple computer programming languages, and I have changed many clients site around because it was not text browse able, so what you do to find out if all the keywords, and links are getting listed by the search engines is to use a text link browser, now if you using Linux, mac they already have one, but if your using a windows box i highly suggest checking out

http://www.vordweb.co.uk/standards/download_lynx.htm

download this, and see if you can browse through out the hole site with then the text link browser, and this will answer you questions, don't 2nd guess your self on this one.

also I would suggest watching all these videos at
http://www.indianawebsitedesign.net/...tts-seo-video/
its my site I categorized them, they are from matt cutts, and there is plenty factors in these videos that he has went over, specially the how to structure a site, this will probably answer a lot of questions you are thinking that you haven't asked yet.

[tdd1984]

Originally Posted by Johan007

AJAX is similar to DHTML. Simply disable JavaScript and CSS using any developer toolbar. What you see now is what a SE can see and index. AJAX has many technologies and most of them inaccessible and not SE friendly however it does depend on the case so do not dismiss this powerful technology.

This is a good way of doing it to, but my recommendations would be using a text link browser, but if you don' know where to download the tool bar at download it https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/60/

I highly recommended using a text link browser though , this gets down to the bottom of search engines with using them, its basically how the search engines are reading your website structure

[WebGeek182]

Good advice. AJAX IS very powerful, it's just finding the right balance between usability and Search Engine Friendliness. One of the things with AJAX is to make sure that a lot of solid content is there on the initial load, and then AJAX can switch it out. Also, important to make sure that each page has a unique url.

[Sadu]

AJAX can be made search engine friendly, but it's not trivial.

If you have AJAX on your site, and it was easy to install, and you didn't have to go out of your way to make it search engine friendly, then it's not search engine friendly.

Easy way to check is to turn off Javascript and click through your site. Is all the content you want indexed available without Javascript? It should be.

The secret to SE friendly AJAX is to make sure the content is delivered using AJAX to Javascript enabled visitors, but by a regular page request for non-javascript visitors.

A good example of SE friendly AJAX is my site - link in my sig. If you have JS, every page is delivered by AJAX, but it still works for the spiders without JS.

This AJAX functionality is basically AJAX for the sake of AJAX - I consider the site a proof of concept that you can have sites that are 100% AJAX based while keeping the back button working, bookmarks working, nice URLs and search engine friendlyness.

For most sites though, it's usually best to deliver content the old fashioned way and use AJAX to enhance the functionality of forms, widgets and non-spiderable content.

[WebGeek182]

Great summary, Sadu. Dead on.

[sheena]

AJAX is a new technology for me. All I know that AJAX is the mixed language of JAVASCRIPT and WML . But for SEO purpose, I didnt used it, It is better to use static page, or using javascript or dhtml

[Johan007]

Originally Posted by sheena

AJAX is a new technology for me. All I know that AJAX is the mixed language of JAVASCRIPT and WML . But for SEO purpose, I didnt used it, It is better to use static page, or using javascript or dhtml

Dont be scared. Non of those technologies can easily pull data on the fly from a database and process it like AJAX can. Use AJAX where appropriate mostly on functionality. We can still optimize the text and content pages around it.

[explicitzone.com]

Originally Posted by theChronic

hey folks
i dont really know how AJAX works but i was wondering if it is SEO friendly?

I was wondering the same thing.

[WebGeek182]

By all means, use AJAX! Just be aware of the SEO considerations and make sure that there is solid content without it.