[HN Gopher] How Google handles JavaScript throughout the indexin...
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       How Google handles JavaScript throughout the indexing process
        
       Author : ea016
       Score  : 43 points
       Date   : 2024-08-01 07:55 UTC (15 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (vercel.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (vercel.com)
        
       | ea016 wrote:
       | A really great article. However they tested on nextjs.org only,
       | so it's still possible Google doesn't waste rendering resources
       | on smaller domains
        
       | rvnx wrote:
       | Strange article, it seems to imply that Google has no problem to
       | index JS-rendered pages, and then the final conclusion is
       | "Client-Side Rendering (CSR), support: Poor / Problematic / Slow"
        
         | meiraleal wrote:
         | Vercel need people to believe they deliver any value for their
         | absurd price for their AWS wrapper
        
           | mdhb wrote:
           | Hint: they don't and their entire business model is actively
           | reliant upon deceiving naive junior developers as far as I
           | can tell.
        
         | madeofpalk wrote:
         | The final _recommendation_ , is to use their semi lock-in
         | product.
        
         | elorant wrote:
         | Well it is slow. You have to render the page through a headless
         | browser which is resource intensive.
        
       | DataDaemon wrote:
       | This is a great auto-promotion article, but everyone knows
       | Googlebot is busy; give him immediate content generated on the
       | server or don't bother Googlebot.
        
       | bbarnett wrote:
       | I kinda wish Google would not index JS rendered stuff. The world
       | would be so much better.
        
         | tempor6767 wrote:
         | Amen to that!
        
         | revskill wrote:
         | Like Hackernews ?
        
       | EcommerceFlow wrote:
       | They tested Google's ability to index and render JS, but not how
       | well those sites ranked. I know as an SEO those results would
       | look completely different. When you're creating content to
       | monetize, the thought process is "why risk it?" with JS.
        
         | rstupek wrote:
         | What does your experience tell you about Wix websites which
         | have 100% JavaScript returned and renders the content entirely
         | with JavaScript?
        
       | dheera wrote:
       | I actually think intentionally downranking sates that require
       | JavaScript to render static content is not a bad idea. It also
       | impedes accessibility-related plugins trying to extract the
       | content and present it to the user in whatever way is compatible
       | to their needs.
       | 
       | Please only use JavaScript for dynamic stuff.
        
         | dmazzoni wrote:
         | > It also impedes accessibility-related plugins trying to
         | extract the content and present it to the user in whatever way
         | is compatible to their needs.
         | 
         | I'm not sure I agree that this is relevant advice today. Screen
         | readers and other assistive technology fully support dynamic
         | content in web pages, and have for years.
         | 
         | Yes, it's good for sites to provide content without JavaScript
         | where possible. But don't make the mistake of conflating the
         | "without JavaScript" version with the accessible version.
        
           | dheera wrote:
           | > Screen readers and other assistive technology
           | 
           | Readers for the blind not the only form of assistive
           | technologies, and unnecessary JS usage where JS is not
           | necessary makes it hard to develop new ones.
           | 
           | There is a huge spectrum of needs in-between, that LLMs will
           | help fulfill. For example it can be even as simple as needing
           | paraphrasing of each section at the top, removing triggering
           | textual content, translating fancy English to simple English,
           | answering voice questions about the text like "how many
           | tablespoons of olive oil", etc.
           | 
           | These are all assistive technologies that would highly
           | benefit from having static text be static.
        
       | orenlindsey wrote:
       | I really think it would be cool if Google started being more open
       | about their SEO policies. Projects like this use 100,000 sites to
       | try to discover what Google does, when Google could just come
       | right out and say it, and it would save everyone a lot of time
       | and energy.
       | 
       | The same outcome is gonna happen either way, Google will say what
       | their policy is, or people will spend time and bandwidth figuring
       | out their policy. Either way, Google's policy becomes public.
       | 
       | Google could even come out and publish stuff about how to have
       | good SEO, and end all those scammy SEO help sites. Even better,
       | they could actively try to promote good things like less JS when
       | possible and less ads and junk. It would help their brand image
       | and make things better for end users. Win-win.
        
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       (page generated 2024-08-01 23:00 UTC)