17 replies to this topic

[adi_azar]

Hello guys,

I am new to the AJAX . I heard the Search engines have problem with AJAX.
How can I SEO AJAX?

Thanks
adi azar

[MaKa]

Search Engines do not execute JavaScript so if you want SEs to access information "hidden" behind AJAX functionality you will have to present it to them in an alternative way.

[OldWelshGuy]

Yep, Ajax is a tricky thing. I got an enquiry from a guy who had paid £10k for his shopping cart that can NOT be spidered. How do you tell a guy like that he has to get it re-coded

[giorgoc]

Use Ajax to web applications like secured member areas, intranet applications instead. If you care about your ranking in Search Engines avoid Ajax. As correctly stated, Ajax is triggered from JavaScript which is known that is hated by crawlers at the moment.

[Jill]

Ajax is triggered from JavaScript which is known that is hated by crawlers at the moment.

I wouldn't say it's "hated" by them. They just can't generally index it.

[jehochman]

What would it mean to index an application? Imagine an online version of Microsoft Word. You can't index that, because it's a program. You could index the program's output, though. Likewise, with an Ajax application, if you want the data it produces to be spiderable, you just make that information available somewhere as an ordinary HTML file. You can even make that data available in the same page by using the NOSCRIPT tag. All you need is a clever web developer.

[Robmuller]

What would it mean to index an application? Imagine an online version of Microsoft Word. You can't index that, because it's a program. You could index the program's output, though. Likewise, with an Ajax application, if you want the data it produces to be spiderable, you just make that information available somewhere as an ordinary HTML file. You can even make that data available in the same page by using the NOSCRIPT tag. All you need is a clever web developer.

I love AJAX: it blocks SE to spider all the outbound links I have on my site. My inbound links are in fact reciprocal links, but not counted that way. For SEO purposes my developer build a seperate HTML structure but excluded the outbound links.

[Michael Martinez]

I love AJAX: it blocks SE to spider all the outbound links I have on my site. My inbound links are in fact reciprocal links, but not counted that way. For SEO purposes my developer build a seperate HTML structure but excluded the outbound links.

Your linking partners, I'm sure, fully appreciate your taking the PageRank and not returning it in a fair deal.

[Robmuller]

Your linking partners, I'm sure, fully appreciate your taking the PageRank and not returning it in a fair deal.

I run an internet directory and I can tell you it is completely in favour of the companies in the directory that my site has an excellent SE ranking: they get a lot of traffic on their sites for free. And talking about this being fair or not: how fair is it anyway to SEO your site when less capable webmasters are not able to optimize their site and are ranked lower because of that.

[Randy]

I certainly hope it's a free directory Robmuller.

If people have to pay for a link and you're not being 100% clear in what you're doing to the links you're being disingenuous at best and committing fraud at worst. Things like that can get people sued or even thrown in jail.

[Jill]

how fair is it anyway to SEO your site when less capable webmasters are not able to optimize their site and are ranked lower because of that.

Less capable? How so? Anyone can optimize their site by simply reading all the info here at High Rankings. Sure, they gotta spend some time reading and learning and then doing, but it's not beyond anyone's capabilities.

Despite what some SEOs would like you to believe, SEO is most definitely NOT rocket science.

[giorgoc]

Well, I understand that you prefer to have others linking to you and you don't link to them. However remember that having a set of outbound links to relevant websites, will also help you gain relevancy which is extremely important!

You can safely remove from the back of your head that outbound linking is just bad..

I love AJAX: it blocks SE to spider all the outbound links I have on my site. My inbound links are in fact reciprocal links, but not counted that way. For SEO purposes my developer build a seperate HTML structure but excluded the outbound links.

[franco81]

Offtopic

I got an enquiry from a guy who had paid £10k for his shopping cart

Ten thousand pounds for a shopping cart?!? Where do you find business like that? Is that the going rate for shopping carts in the UK?

[robwatts]

This is interesting.

It looks at REST and Ajax and discusses some of the issues. Not a 'how to seo ajax guide'or anything like that, but a useful insight for people who are looking to get their head round it all.

I think the seo ajax thing is pretty simple to cure really. It doesnt take too much to implement a system of static urls for unique content. In fact, a good ajax or whiz bang app that uses some of that stuff, should IMO offer a permalink to a url with the unique content. If its not bookmarkble then it kinda lowers the quality of the web for all. We need to be able to find things for reference purposes, an ajax interface that enables that is a good thing.

[linux_lover]

I would treat Ajax like Flash.

Flash cannot be spidered (much), its not accessible (really unless you have the most expensive current screen reader) so an alternative is provided say a text only version or an accessible version. To be honest I wouldnt use Ajax for anything other than non essential enhancements or for a web application that doesnt need to be spidered (like say a spreadsheet) but thats not helping you

One method is to completely duplicate the site which would work but is soooooooooooooooooooooo ineffcient.

A better method is to use NOSCRIPT or detect whether the client can use javascript and provide a different site AUTOMATICALLY.

Never use static content is my motto, and if your talking about a shopping cart, it should be dynamic. Saying that you paid 10k, this should have been factored it by any decent developer!