Ajax or not ajax?

**happy_2b_kot** · 09-24-2007, 06:23 PM

Need suggestion.
As far as I know when you are building your website using ajax technology you will submitt issues with search engine robots.

But when you do noy use your ajax on your website - you asre using some very needed features, and thats really bad.

We are having website for business templatesflow.com and due to search engine difficulties we have cut off all ajax parts from our website.

Any opinion to find way out to have needed features and deal with SE ?

**vangogh** · 01:57 AM

The main issue you should have is that search engines won't be able to read anything you output with the javascript.

You should be able to build an Ajax driven page that will be fine with search engines. Just know that search engines won't be reading your javascript. Place your .js code in an external file and you should be ok.

What exactly are the problems you're having? How do you know it's the Ajax programming that's the problem?

**ADAM Web Design** · 01:21 AM

What vangogh said. If you build a non-JS version of your site, you will not only satisfy your non-JS users, but the SEs as well.

AJAX isn't the problem in this case. The problem sounds like you're relying exclusively on it, at the expense of your SEO efforts and non-JS user experience.

**happy_2b_kot** · 09-25-2007, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

The main issue you should have is that search engines won't be able to read anything you output with the javascript.

You should be able to build an Ajax driven page that will be fine with search engines. Just know that search engines won't be reading your javascript. Place your .js code in an external file and you should be ok.

What exactly are the problems you're having? How do you know it's the Ajax programming that's the problem?

this is a well known problem that ajax pages makes trouble with SE robots that are not able to locate content on pages made on ajax technology
correct me if I am wrong

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

What vangogh said. If you build a non-JS version of your site, you will not only satisfy your non-JS users, but the SEs as well.

AJAX isn't the problem in this case. The problem sounds like you're relying exclusively on it, at the expense of your SEO efforts and non-JS user experience.

i have never heard that java completely not indexed by SEO, it makes difficulties for SE to execute J scrips. and trend is to make more SEO-friendly J-scripts from users side and to leatn SE to execute Js (and even heard some abour ajax) from SE side.

**tripy** · 09-25-2007, 09:40 AM

No, the search engines don't execute no javascript (or at least, not that I ever heard of).
You should consider that the search engine see only what is inside the code of your page at load time.

I keep as a rule of thumb that anything manipulated, added or modified after the page load will probably be ignored by the search engines.

**ADAM Web Design** · 09-25-2007, 10:30 AM

Again, what tripy said. Your "well known problem" is that people don't know how to build websites for both non-JS and JS users.

The best thing you can do is to view your site in Firefox with Javascript disabled and fix any functionality you don't see so that it's non-JS friendly. Once you do that, you'll have solved your SE issues as well.

**happy_2b_kot** · 09-25-2007, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tripy

I keep as a rule of thumb that anything manipulated, added or modified after the page load will probably be ignored by the search engines.

yep, +1,thanks

Quote:

The best thing you can do is to view your site in Firefox with Javascript disabled and fix any functionality you don't see so that it's non-JS friendly. Once you do that, you'll have solved your SE issues as well.

nice idea

**vangogh** · 09-25-2007, 04:12 PM

What Thiery said.

Let's say you have a page and in one section of the page there's a little Ajax app that updates some content based on user input. It'll depend a little on how you built the app, but search engines would likely see the page as it first loads. The new content that appears after the initial load probably doesn't get seen.

You can probably run into issues if your JavaScript is really bad, just like you can if your html is really bad, but you should be able to build search friendly Ajax apps.

Ajax isn't all that much different than DHTML. There are plenty of search friendly pages that use JavaScript to add some effects like image swaps, etc. What Ajax really adds is the ability to interact with the server without having to refresh the entire page.

Another way to view your pages is using the Yellowpipe Lynx Viewer Tool extension for Firefox. It should show you how your pages will look in the Lynx browser which I believe is similar to how a search engine spider will see your site.

**tripy** · 09-25-2007, 04:24 PM

Quote:

It should show you how your pages will look in the Lynx browser which I believe is similar to how a search engine spider will see your site.

Exactly.
And for the record, Lynx, the text based web browser, don't interpret javascript at all.
And no, it's not outdated, it's still developed today and fairly useful for a lot of tasks.

**happy_2b_kot** · 09-27-2007, 08:29 PM

cool. generally we have decided to use ajax on parts that non-needed to be ibexed by SEO. Like login section, cart, shop features - all this made on ajax, and website itself in html.
should be fine now

**ADAM Web Design** · 09-28-2007, 03:17 AM

Slow your roll there, homeslice. You missed the bigger issue completely.

What about users that don't have Javascript enabled? Will they still be able to use the cart? It doesn't sound like they will.

**happy_2b_kot** · 09-28-2007, 09:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

Slow your roll there, homeslice. You missed the bigger issue completely.

What about users that don't have Javascript enabled? Will they still be able to use the cart? It doesn't sound like they will.

yep. user without java will not be able to use cart. but from website stats we have only 1-2 % of such visitors. imho that is not so awfull as it sounds as all websites novadays are built using something more than plain html, and not all of them are 100% viewable in "linx"-like browsers

**Johan007** · 09-29-2007, 03:52 AM

I presume we are talking about M$ AJAX. Tell your programmers to always provide <a> tag alternative where .NET PostBack is used for content navigation. If they do not like it then refer to your W3C web standards of Accessibility because if your aiming for compliance the site should work without JavaScript for the lowest Single A pass.

**happy_2b_kot** · 10-03-2007, 05:41 PM

thanks, will try to epain that to folks

generally thanks for all this info - seems like we have a great conversation here

**happy_2b_kot** · 03:56 PM

besides, related question, what could we use to give realtime active features and possibilities but not using ajax? (sorry if it's a dumb question - i'm not high level coder)

**vangogh** · 10-16-2007, 08:14 PM

I would probably still opt for Ajax. There's nothing wrong with using it. You can still make Ajax apps search friendly. It's a matter of understanding what search spiders will and won't see.

Also keep in mind that links more than anything are going to determine where a page ranks, assuming it's indexed. If you create a useful app it's going to get links.

I wouldn't worry so much about whether or not to use Ajax. Do spend some time understanding the pros and cons so you can minimize the cons while maximizing the pros.

**happy_2b_kot** · 10-18-2007, 05:54 PM

thanks for this )