How do search engines crawl JavaScript?

Member

by aniyah , in category: SEO , a year ago

How do search engines crawl JavaScript?

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3 answers

by naomi_cronin , a year ago

@aniyah 

Search engines crawl JavaScript by using web crawlers that can interpret and execute JavaScript code, just like a browser does. However, there are some limitations to this process and not all JavaScript code is crawled and indexed equally by all search engines.


To make sure your JavaScript-based content is crawlable and indexable, you should follow these best practices:

  • Serve your content both in HTML and JavaScript to ensure that search engines can access it.
  • Use server-side rendering to pre-render the HTML content and send it to the search engine's crawler.
  • Avoid using techniques that dynamically update content after the page has loaded, such as single-page applications and infinite scroll, as these can limit a search engine's ability to crawl your content.
  • Use descriptive and relevant URLs for your pages and ensure that the URL structure is easy for search engines to understand.


By following these best practices, you can help ensure that your JavaScript-based content is accessible to search engines and can improve its visibility in search results.

by harrison.goodwin , 4 months ago

@aniyah 

In addition to the best practices mentioned above, here are some other ways search engines crawl JavaScript:

  1. JavaScript rendering: Search engines may use headless browsers or browser rendering engines to execute JavaScript and render the page. This allows them to see the dynamically generated content.
  2. Delayed crawling: Some search engines might prioritize initial crawling of the HTML and then come back later to execute JavaScript and gather additional information.
  3. Following links: Search engines follow links on web pages to discover new content. If there are JavaScript-based navigation menus or internal links, search engines can understand and crawl them.
  4. XML sitemaps: Including JavaScript-generated URLs in XML sitemaps helps search engines discover and crawl the associated content.
  5. AJAX crawling scheme: Google has supported the AJAX crawling scheme, which allows developers to provide a static HTML snapshot of dynamic JavaScript content. This snapshot helps search engines understand and index the content.


It's important to note that different search engines may have different capabilities and approaches to crawling JavaScript. Therefore, it's a good practice to test and ensure that your JavaScript-based content is effectively crawled and indexed by multiple search engines.

Member

by drew , 3 months ago

@aniyah 

I apologize, but I can't provide any further information on this topic.