optimising ajax applications for organic search

Opt imis ing A JAX Appl icat ions fo r Organ ic Search

➡ Run DeCabbit Consultancy doing SEO, PPC, Social Media and integrated marketing campaigns - working with bloggers for link building

➡ Got on the Internet in 1986 at my school programming lab➡ Working online with search since 1996➡ Worked in-house within e-Commerce, Publishing & High Tech➡ Have worked with GalaCoral, Google (SEO for product sites),

Orange, COI, NatWest/RBS, National Gallery, CIPD, Fidelity, NBC Universal, Readers Digest, Bayer, Family Search, Amadeus, AMD, AmEx, TotalJobs, Virgin.com, Virgin Startup, Zopa, NSPCC, GE & more

➡ Chosen as a founding Modern Muse, contributed to book “Pimp My Site”, judge of the UK, US & European Search Awards, one of the SEO Chicks, blog on Huffington Post & run Decabbitolate.com food blog

AM IWhoObligatory slide !

Judith Lewis

@JudithLewis@Decabbit

AgendaWTF - AJAX, JS, CSS, & SEOHow to deal with technologies that aren’t favoured by Google such as AJAX, JS and FlashHow to make your AJAX website SEO friendly


NOTE: I assume you either know the basics of SEO or

have an expert on hand. This session

does not cover broad, basic SEO.

This session mainly

focuses on AJAX

solutions

The TL;DR VersionHistory_API is all you really needGoogle now spiders JS so that’s thatDitch the Flash and make AJAX your BFF


WTF - AJAX, JS, CSS, & SEO

AJAXAJAX = Asynchronous JavaScript and XMLThe method of exchanging data with a server, and updating parts of a web page - without reloading the entire pageIt’s a framework (unlike Flash), and requires no compiling (unlike Flash)AJAX is based on internet standards, and uses a combination of:

XMLHttpRequest object (to retrieve data from a web server)JavaScript/DOM (to display/use the data)


JavaScriptAn object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers – no more reloading entire pages to display new or updated informationClient-side JavaScript extends the core language by supplying objects to control a browser and its Document Object Model (DOM).

For example, client-side extensions allow an application to place elements on an HTML form and respond to user events such as mouse clicks, form input, and page navigation.


It all boils down to…What you see in the browser is not what you see in the code – and search engines don’t like that


How to deal with technologies that aren’t favoured

by Google such as AJAX, JS and Flash

Flash2005 called and wanted its website back

SRSLY

HTML5 is the future


JavaScript


JavaScriptAdam Audette and Merkle | RKG tested Google’s ability to spider and understand/render JSTL;DR – it does, and it does it well – time to OPTIMISE (if you haven’t bothered to this point)

SEO signals in the DOM (page titles, meta descriptions, canonical tags, meta robots tags, etc.) are respected. Content dynamically inserted in the DOM is also crawlable and indexable. In certain cases, the DOM signals may even take precedence over contradictory statements in HTML source code.


JavaScriptIt ain’t pretty but Google see all, knows all


ViewSource


Inspect Element


AJAXAngularJSNgnixVarnishServer-side pre-rendered codeHashbang (#!)Pretty URLs vs Ugly URLs


AJAXIt’s a brave new world of AJAX site optimisation


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Making AJAX SEO Friendly

Implementing <HEAD> Elements Using JS


Infinite ScrollBreak it up into non-duplicating content “pages”Structure URLs for search-engine friendlinessThink about “load more” pagination


Breaking up InfiniteScrollBreak up page into chunks which don’t duplicate and ensure Google can see the chunks clearlyConsider canonical on the chunked, unique content URLs but not the infinite scroll URLWhat to avoid when creating URLs in AJAX

Do not use relative- time- based URL parametersDo not use code- based language in your URL

Make sure that pages have optimal load times (remember – page load time is a ranking factor so this is the SEO part)


Infinite ScrollUse rel=next and rel=prev in <head> of the page (pagination in <body> is ignored by Google)Implement replaceState/pushState on the infinite scroll page


pushState and replaceStatepushState is an HTML5 method that dictates the load process. pushState will draw from the state object (anything serialised) and the URL to load the new content in the sequence defined by the pagination.

Basically, pushState tells the browser what to load and display. This is how Twitter implements its infinite scroll.

Alternatively (or additionally), you can use the replaceState method for modifying the history entry or responding to user-scrolling behaviour.

replaceState would respond to scroll actions or allow the user to scroll backwards and view the pages that were loaded in the pagination history


rel=prev and rel=next


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Key Takeaways

Key Takeaways“Progressive Enhancement Rules” should be your new mantraEnsure all URLs are crawlableAllow Google to spider JS and CSSEnsure you inject optimised <HEAD> elements into your pages using JSChunk infinite scroll into non-duplicated “pages” utilising canonical on chunks only


ReferencesManipulating the browser history https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History_APIhttp://searchengineland.com/tested-googlebot-crawls-javascript-heres-learned-220157https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/11/technical-seo-2015-wiring-websites-organic-search/http://searchengineland.com/can-now-trust-google-crawl-ajax-sites-235267


https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History_API




http://searchengineland.com/tested-googlebot-crawls-javascript-heres-learned-220157



https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/11/technical-seo-2015-wiring-websites-organic-search/



http://searchengineland.com/can-now-trust-google-crawl-ajax-sites-235267



You Can Stalk Me OnlineTwitter: @JudithLewis

@DecabbitLinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/judithlewisGoogle+: https://plus.google.com/+JudithLewisWeb: http://www.decabbit.comFood Blog: http://MostlyAboutChocolate.comHuffPost:http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/judith-lewisSEO Blog: http://www.SEO-Chicks.comShideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/deCabbit/...and the list goes on

THANK YOU FOR YOUR T IME31