During a recent Google Search Central SEO office hour hangout, a question was posed to Google search advocate John Mueller, asking if it’s a bad thing for a website to rely on JavaScript for basic functionality. I was.
Could this have a negative impact on Googlebot regarding crawling and indexing?
Mueller said that’s probably fine, but he also suggested things to do to make sure both Google and users aren’t having trouble with the site.
Sites are hard to use without JavaScript
The questioner stated that many features of the site relied on JavaScript and were concerned about the impact on both user-friendliness and SEO-friendliness.
This is the question:
“With JavaScript turned off, our website is not very user-friendly.
Most of the images are not loaded. I can’t open the out flyout menu.
However, the Chrome Inspect feature includes all menu links in the source code.
Isn’t it still a problem for Googlebot that we rely on JavaScript?”
By “Chrome Inspect feature” that person probably means Chrome’s built-in View Page Source code inspection tool.
This means that even if you can’t access the link if JavaScript is turned off in your browser, the link remains in the HTML code.
Muller recommends site test
Mueller’s response acknowledged that Google could probably handle the site.
However, the fact that many sites rely on JavaScript for functionality and that the questioner’s experience is mostly normal was not mentioned.
If you visit almost any site with JavaScript disabled in your browser, many images may not load, layouts may break, and some menus may not work.
Below is a screenshot of SearchEngineJournal viewed with JavaScript disabled.
Mueller alluded to this fact in his answer, but he should put at the forefront of his answer that most sites aren’t user-friendly without JavaScript enabled in their browser, and that the experience of the person asking the question is normal. I guess. But it’s actually very common.
Mueller admitted that everything would probably work out.
He said:
“And from my point of view… I test it.
Then probably everything will be fine.
If you’re using JavaScript in a reasonable way and haven’t done anything special to block it on your page, you’ll probably be fine. ”
Tests to check site performance
Mueller then recommended running tests to make sure the site was working optimally, and said “we” have the tools, but didn’t mention any specific tools. I did.
Perhaps he’s talking about the tools available in Google Search Console that can give you feedback on whether Google can crawl your pages and images.
Mueller continued his answer:
“But believe me, it’s much better to just try it with a test tool.
Also, the testing tools available to us are well documented.
There are different variations that we recommend in terms of improvements in case of problems.
So, revisit our guides on JavaScript and SEO, try something out to make sure it actually works the way you want it to, and then consider using it to improve your website as a whole. . ”
User-friendly site experience
Mueller next discussed the issue of user friendliness. This is because the asker stated the site is not user friendly with her JavaScript turned off.
The overwhelming majority of sites on the Internet use JavaScript, and W3Techs publishes statistics that 97.9% of sites use JavaScript.
Using real Chrome user data from opted-in users, HTTPArchive’s annual report on JavaScript usage found that the median number of JavaScript downloads on mobile devices is 20, with 33 first-party JavaScript and 34 third-party It states that it contains a script for Website 90th percentile.
HttpArchive further notes that, on average, a website’s median average of 36.2% of the JavaScript forced into a site visitor’s browser goes unused, wasting bandwidth.
As you can see, the issue is not about users visiting the site with JavaScript turned off, as the questioner was concerned. Their concerns were misplaced.
The real problem centers around users encountering sites that force site visitors to use excessive JavaScript, thereby degrading the user experience.
Muller didn’t mention the nuances of how the person’s concerns were misplaced. recommended a convenient method for
Mueller continued his answer:
“You mentioned user friendly when it comes to JavaScript, but from our point of view the guidance we have is essentially very technical in nature and be able to see the links on the page from a technical point of view.
I mainly don’t care about usability.
But of course users care about usability.
And that’s probably why it makes sense to do something a little more to make sure users really have a good experience on your page.
And this is often not just a test tool issue.
Rather, conduct a small user survey, interview some users, or at least conduct surveys on your website to understand where users are stuck and what problems they face. you may need.
Is it because of these…you mentioned the flyout menu. Or is it something completely different where I’m having trouble, text too small, buttons not clicking properly, etc., which doesn’t really match the technical issue, but is kinder. If you can improve user problems and make users happier, they will stick around, come back, and invite more people to your website. ”
User and Google testing
Mueller does not explicitly mention any tools for performing the recommended tests. Search Console is clearly the best tool for diagnosing Google crawl issues. For example, Search Console alerts publishers to the number of discovered URLs.
When it comes to user experience tools, the free Microsoft Clarity User Experience Analytics tool is your best bet. This GDPR-compliant analytics tool provides insight into how users are experiencing your site and can signal when user experience is bad.
As such, it can be very helpful in diagnosing possible site problems discussed by John Mueller.
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Watch John Mueller at 10:23.
Featured Image: El Aon/Shutterstock
