AJAX Crawlability in a Responsive Publisher World

A talk give at Search Marketing Expo Advanced in June 2014, on how to make AJAX Crawlable for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes. It covers ideas like infinite scroll, ajax galleries / slideshows, pushState, and the general architectural issues around prerendering with platforms like AngularJS, EmberJS, Backbone.JS, and CanJS vs server side rendering.

Transcript

1. AJAX in a responsive publishing world CRAWLABILITY
2. google.me/+EricWu @eywu linkedin.com/in/ericywu github.com/eywu
4. AJAX is like violence if it doesn't solve your problems, you’re not using enough of it.
5. 16ms 10kb 100ms SPEED, PERFORMANCE, HUMAN PERCEPTION
7. PAGES CRAWLED PER DAY 80% INCREASE 20,000 80,000 May 2013 – Aug 2013
8. 80% INCREASE ORGANIC SEARCH SESSIONS 600,000 1,200,000 May 2013 – Aug 2013
9. Mar 2004: “Googlebot/Test” External JS Mar 2006: Googlebot Uses Onsite Live Chat June 2010: Caffeine (Full Rollout) Nov 2010: Instant Preview May 2014: GWT Fetch & Render May 2012: Matt PSA. Don’t Block JS & CSS Oct 2009: AJAX Crawlability _escaped_fragment_ Nov 2007: Spider’s View on Web 2.0 May 2013: Matt Video. Googlebot & AJAX
10. SCROLL
11. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/02/infinite-scroll-search-friendly.html THINK BASIC PAGINATION NAVIGATE / PAGINATE
12. NAVIGATE / PAGINATE <a href="/page/2/">Load More</a> LOAD MORE LINK
13. NAVIGATE / PAGINATE <a href="/page/2/">Load More</a> LOAD MORE LINK
14. NAVIGATE / PAGINATE REL=NEXT / PREV <link href="/page/10/" rel="prev" /> <link href="/page/11/" rel="canonical" /> <link href="/page/12/" rel="next" />
15. POINTER URLS* example.com/?last-post=42 example.com/?time=1401424133
16. CONTINUOUS CONTENT
17. PUSHSTATE OR SHEBANG #! http://caniuse.com/#search=history history.pushState( {}, titleOfPage, newURL ); history.replaceState();
18. AJAX GALLERIES
19. CONTINUOUS CONTENT 1.  PUSHSTATE 2.  VIEW-SOURCE NEXT SLIDE LINKS 3.  REL=NEXT/ PREV
20. DEFERED IMAGE LOADING I WISH CRAWLERS SUPPORTED REL=CANONICAL HTTP HEADERS FOR IMAGES
21. 80% DECREASE IMAGE SEARCH SESSIONS 400,000 800,000 Nov 2012 – Mar 2013
22. LAZY LOADING •  1x1 “BLANKS” •  SKELETON SCREENS •  LOW RESOLUTION Z Z Z
23. RESPONSIVE IMAGES •  <PICTURE> •  SRCSET •  POLYFILL •  UA DETECTION
24. NOSCRIPT <img data-src='<480:small.jpg, <960:medium.jpg, >960:large.jpg' /> <noscript> <img src='full.jpg' /> </noscript>
25. CRAWLABLE PARTIALS
27. CRAWLABLE PARTIALS LYRIC SEARCH LINKS TO http://rock.rapgenius.com/1884632/Pharrell-williams- happy/ It-might-seem-crazy-what-im-bout-to-say-sunshine-shes- here-you-can-take-a-break
28. CRAWLABLE PARTIALS JS ENABLED REDIRECTS http://rock.rapgenius.com/Pharrell-williams- happy-lyrics#note-1884632
29. CRAWLABLE PARTIALS JS DISABLED RENDERS http://rock.rapgenius.com/1884632/Pharrell-williams- happy/It-might-seem-crazy-what-im-bout-to-say-sunshine- shes-here-you-can-take-a-break
30. 4X PAGES CRAWLED PER DAY QUADRUPALED 75,000 300,000 May 2013 – Aug 2013
31. +1 MILLION ORGANIC SEARCH SESSIONS 2,000,000 4,000,000 May 2013 – Aug 2013
32. Technical SEO Community HelpDeskHangouts.com SearchSignals.com bit.ly/ajax-crawlability
33. APPENDIX
34. ARCHITECTURE PRERENDER SERVERSIDE VS
35. PRERENDER
36. PRERENDER
37. PRERENDER SEO.js CONS PROS • SINGLE VIEW TEMPLATE • SINGLE ROUTING • REVERSE PROXY CACHING • _ESCAPED_FRAGMENT_ • INTERPOLATED SOURCE
38. SERVER SIDE
39. SERVER SIDE
40. SERVER SIDE
41. SERVER SIDE
42. SERVER SIDE
43. SERVER SIDE
44. SERVER SIDE RENDER CONS PROS • CLEAN URLS* • ALL REQUESTS ARE EQUAL • TRUE DYNAMIC RESPONSE • 2 ROUTERS • 2 VIEW TEMPLATES*
45. Quote conflated from my favorite ruby XML parser » http://nokogiri.org/ Speed, Performance, and Human Perception » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ubJzEi3HuA SERoundtable Timeline Links » http://www.seroundtable.com/google-javascript-webmaster-tools-18602.html Googlebot/Test External JS » http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/000236.html Googlebot Uses Onsite Live Chat » http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/003492.html Spider’s View on Web 2.0 » http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/11/spiders-view-of-web-20.html AJAX Crawlability Proposal » http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/proposal-for-making-ajax-crawlable.html Caffine Rollout » http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Instant Previews » http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/beyond-instant-results-instant-previews.html http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/11/instant-previews.html http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/11/get-post-and-safely-surfacing-more-of.html https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq-instant-previews Matt Cutts PSA: Don’t Block JS & CSS » http://www.seroundtable.com/googlebot-javascript-css-14930.html Matt Video: How Does Googlebot handle content loaded via AJAX? » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6mtiwQ3nvw REFERENCES
46. GWT Fetch & Render » http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/05/rendering-pages-with-fetch-as-google.html Google Blog: Infinite Scroll Recommendations & Example » http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/02/infinite-scroll-search-friendly.html LA Times Reimagined by Code and Theory » http://www.codeandtheory.com/things-we-make/the-los-angeles-times-reimagined Google Blog: Specify your canonical » http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html Google Blog: Pagination with rel=“next” and rel=“prev” » http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html Google Blog: Video about Pagination » http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/03/video-about-pagination-with-relnext- and.html One Page Wonder: Coverage on QZ » http://www.foliomag.com/2013/one-page-wonder-infinite-scroll The Next Web Redesign Coverage » http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/10/the-next-web-redesigns-to-be-more-app-like/ The Next Web Press Release » http://thenextweb.pr.co/ 010a893a11df2bb61d981b2b0607c1b6784a5ab07b5ab100790b2bb3168a35f8 REFERENCES
47. USA Today Redesign » http://blog.f-i.com/usatoday-com-redesigning-one-of-americas-most-popular-news-site/ http://designenvy.aiga.org/usa-today-website-redesign-fantasy-interactive/ http://www.businessinsider.com/usa-todays-homepage-redesigns-2012-9 Gawker 1 Year Later Success » http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/02/02/remember-that-gawker-redesign-a-years-worth-of- data-says-it-worked/ http://www.businessinsider.com/nick-denton-loses-bet-that-the-gawker-redesign-wouldnt-hurt- traffic-2011-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/gawker-media-traffic-numbers-2011-4 Gawker Failed Coverage » http://www.catchmyfame.com/2013/05/02/how-gawker-sabotaged-their-own-network-with-a- horrible-new-layout/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/gawkers-traffic-numbers-are-worse-than- anyone-anticipated/237594/ http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/02/gawker-learns-the-hard-way-why-hash-bang-urls-are-evil/ Paul Irish to Matt Cutts Video » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiAF9VdvRPw Google Developer Documentation on AJAX Crawlability » https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/ Browser Compatibility Chart » http://caniuse.com/#search=history Breaking The Web With Hash Bangs » http://isolani.co.uk/blog/javascript/BreakingTheWebWithHashBangs REFERENCES
48. Vox Cards: Legalization of Marijuana » http://www.vox.com/cards/marijuana-legalization/learn-more-about-marijuana-legalization Bing’s Duane Forrester says still no rel=canonical in http headers » https://twitter.com/DuaneForrester/status/459387860358295552 Google Blog: A Faster Image Search » http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/01/faster-image-search.html Google Says It’s Better for Webmasters » http://www.seroundtable.com/google-image-search-design-16259.html Ilya Grigork discussion around <plaintext> injection » https://plus.google.com/+IlyaGrigorik/posts/S6j45VxNESB Vox Workflow for Creating SVG Images » http://product.voxmedia.com/2013/11/25/5426880/polygon-feature-design-svg-animations-for-fun- and-profit One Solution to Responsive Images » http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/02/03/one-solution-to-responsive-images/ Truly Responsive Images » http://davidwalsh.name/responsive-design AngularJS NYC Meetup: Server-side Template Rendering by HBO » http://youtu.be/iB7hfvqyZpg?t=58m20s REFERENCES
49. Vox Cards: Legalization of Marijuana » http://www.vox.com/cards/marijuana-legalization/learn-more-about-marijuana-legalization Bing’s Duane Forrester says still no rel=canonical in http headers » https://twitter.com/DuaneForrester/status/459387860358295552 Google Blog: A Faster Image Search » http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/01/faster-image-search.html Google Says It’s Better for Webmasters » http://www.seroundtable.com/google-image-search-design-16259.html Ilya Grigork discussion around <plaintext> injection » https://plus.google.com/+IlyaGrigorik/posts/S6j45VxNESB Vox Workflow for Creating SVG Images » http://product.voxmedia.com/2013/11/25/5426880/polygon-feature-design-svg-animations-for-fun- and-profit One Solution to Responsive Images » http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/02/03/one-solution-to-responsive-images/ Truly Responsive Images » http://davidwalsh.name/responsive-design Serious Angular SEO » http://www.ng-newsletter.com/posts/serious-angular-seo.html AngularJS NYC Meetup: Server-side Template Rendering by HBO » http://youtu.be/iB7hfvqyZpg?t=58m20s REFERENCES
50. Josh Kadis Quartz on VIP Wordpress Video » http://vip.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/josh-kadis-qz-wordpress/ https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2Z4K6ynFLg5TVdvWVV1aTRmYUU/edit?pli=1 AirBNB: Our First Node.js App » http://nerds.airbnb.com/weve-launched-our-first-nodejs-app-to-product/ AirBNB: Rendr (Backbone in the Browser and Node) » http://nerds.airbnb.com/weve-open-sourced-rendr-run-your-backbonejs-a/ StackOverflow: PushState, Backbone, and Node » http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7098130/reusing-backbone-views-routes-on-the-server-when- using-backbone-js-pushstate-for Google: How do I create an HTML Snapshot (HIJAX) » https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/html-snapshot REFERENCES