Week 10 – Javascript

We’re on to WEEK 10 of the A to Z of #seo – which means:

🅙 for Javascript

Now, this can get pretty complex but in the spirit of what these 26 posts are all about, I’ll try to keep it simple.

Javascript is a programming language used by web developers to bring ‘websites to life’ – it adds the dynamic elements that make pages more interactive. I read a good analogy of how this works for websites/search…

Think of a car, HTML – which you may have heard of – is the body/frame, CSS adds colour & style and JS (Javascript) adds the engine/wheels/seats and so on. It’s not a perfect analogy but it works.

Now, the issue (from an SEO perspective) with JS is that Google/Search Engines have a job understanding (and sometimes getting to) this JS content. They are getting better at it but it does cause them some issues. (I’ll add a link to a Google resource in the comments about this).

…this can cause issues getting your page(s) to rank – if the big G can’t fully understand your pages (and content) it might not rank these pages as well as they ought to be. There’s an extra step – or two – in the process using such Google technologies such as ‘Caffeine’. There are delays because of this extra step too.

In summary – use JS if you have to but don’t use it for everything.

Resources for further reading: Google docs on this – a SUPERB guide to this from Onely –  and again from Onely a tool to see how your site looks with and without JS.