Optimizing SharePoint 2013 public-facing websites for Internet search engines

Waldek MastykarzSharePoint Server MVP

Waldek Mastykarz

SharePoint MVPDeveloper at Maventionhttp://www.mavention.comhttp://blog.mastykarz.nl@waldekm

Overview

Setting the expectationsClient-side rendering and public-

facing websitesUsing SharePoint 2013 SEO featuresOptimizing SPA public-facing

websites for Internet search enginesResources

Setting the expectations

SEO in SharePoint 2013 possible but requires effort and trade-offs

SEO must be a part of the project from the beginning

Perception Cannot use everything from SharePoint

on a website WYSIWYG vs. WYGIWYW

Recommended process

•Responsive or mobile website?

•Schema.org or not?

•Accessibility

•Progressive enhancement

Requirements

•Verify that HTML supports all requirements

•Verify cross-device and browser support

•Sign-off with customer

Static HTML prototype

•Aim for 100% alignment with static HTML prototype

SharePoint website

HTML-first

Building public-facing websites requires different approach than building intranets

Clean and semantic HTML is necessary It’s what is indexed It influences the ranking of your

website It’s not what SharePoint 2013 renders

by defaultTip: Leverage Device Channels to

gain control over HTML

Client-side rendering and public-facing websites SEO requires Search-driven publishing

Content aggregations with Friendly URLs possible only via search

XML Sitemap built using Search Search uses client-side rendering by

default Client-side rendering is JavaScript and is

not indexed by Internet search engines Exposes internal information

User account names

Client-side rendering and public-facing websitesSharePoint 2013 uses fallback

server-side rendering for search bots XSLT-based Default rendering using tables Customizable but doubles the effort Doesn’t support paging out-of-the-box

Tip: Always use server-side rendering on public-facing websites

SharePoint 2013 SEO featuresFriendly URLsXML Sitemap & Robots.txtSEO Properties

Friendly URLs

Part of Managed NavigationBenefits

Decouple physical site structure from navigation

Clean and extension-less URLsConsequences

Content aggregations possible only using search

Risk of content duplication

XML Sitemap & Robots.txt

Automatically generated using Search

Require content to be crawledRequire anonymous accessEnabled per Site CollectionNo support for relevance and crawl

rate

SEO Properties

Browser TitleMeta DescriptionRobots noindexCanonical URL

Works partially

Why building public websites as SPA?PerformanceUser Experience

SPAs & SEO

Single Page Application = JavaScript-based rendering

JavaScript is not indexed by Internet search engines

Tip: Google guidance for optimizing SPAs for Internet search engines

SEO Requirements for SPAs

Each dynamic state must be retrievable statically

SPA must accept states via the _escaped_fragment_ query string parameter

Basically requires you to build your website twice

SharePoint SPAs & SEO recipe Build static website Build SPA on top Add support for _escaped_fragment_

using an HTTP Module Rewrite URLs in all pages Rewrite Canonical URL Rewrite URLs in XML Sitemap Tip: Use a separate Device Channel to

avoid unnecessary postprocessing

Resources SharePoint 2013 SEO white-paper

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=40848

Google guidance of optimizing SPAs for Internet search engineshttps://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/

SEOhttp://blog.mastykarz.nl/tag/seo/

Maventionhttp://www.mavention.com

Thank you for attending!

Waldek MastykarzSharePoint Server MVPhttp://blog.mastykarz.nl | @waldekm