By riyathomas
AngularJS being a comprehensive JavaScript-based web app framework offers dynamic functions for extending HTML and improving the user experience of a site by building “single-page apps.” Although Angular can benefit from user interaction and increased conversion rates, it can be a compelling task to make a search engine optimization strategy and crucially impact organic search traffic.
Introduction to AngularJS
Like Ember and Backbone, AngularJS is a JavaScript-based web platform with extensive features and functionalities. It loads the information asynchronously to the browser, and when the user makes interaction with web page elements, AngularJS executes the data on the client-side.
This gives increased flexibility along with superb web presentation, especially when taken in comparison with dynamic template-driven pages or static HTML. SPAs serve information to the browser – where the major part of processing happens – without any need to reload the page continuously after each user interaction.
The major challenge that comes down with most Javascript programming is the rendering of indexable content and internal navigation, so crawlers can search and index it.
It is even more complex that Google introduced AngularJS, so the straightforward association with the tech giant encourages the perception that it’s completely SEO-friendly. However, it can entirely hide your page content from the search engines and raise your website’s organic traffic.
Main Issue with AngularJS
As discussed above, the main challenge while using any JavaScript technology is indexable content. Search engines like Google have constantly been challenged by websites serving content via JavaScript. Google has earned a considerable proficiency in crawl and index javascript and has even deprecated their earlier suggestion to make AJAX crawlable. Still, they are not reliable enough. Various search engines are even further behind with such an ability.
How to overcome AngularJS-SEO issues
Search engines still need to see the elements and content of a webpage in the source code for complete assurance that it will be indexed appropriately. An efficient solution to consider is using a pre-rendering platform, like Prerender.io. Such a middleware will help you crawl the web pages of your site, host a cached edition of your Angular pages on their CDM(content delivery system) and execute all JS files. Whenever a request is received from a crawler, it will show them the cached edition.
It looks like a cloak thing, but Google has given its confirmation that it’s not. The search engines giant has also stated that as long as your intention is to enhance the user experience and the content quality available to the users is the same as what’s given to Googlebot, you won’t face any penalty.
Check Rendering of Web Pages
You should keep an eye on the rendering of your web pages. Following tools can help you in checking the rendering of web pages with ease.
Search Engine Index
You can check the latest cached edition of a web page by using a “site:[domian]” query with Bing or Google. In the search results, navigate to the end of the site address and tap and select the “cache” option in Google and “cached page” in Bing. This will present you with whatever the bot discovered with the last crawl of your webpage.
Browseo
It is a comprehensive tool that renders the page elements and makes a list of total word count, external and internal links, and crucial <head> content like meta description, HTML title and keywords, Facebook and Twitter tags, and a SERP preview.
Fetch as Google
From the search console, you run any webpage on your site to check what Google checks.
Angular v4
One of the most comprehensive versions of Angular, v4, has become popular since its inception into the market. It is one of the most promising AngularJS versions for which you can hire experienced Angular developers for performing several technical search engine optimization tasks. This version has Angular Universal that offers the extensive functions to create all of the HTML of a web page at a given point of reference and can be used with a CDN or static HTML.
Wrapping Up
Advancing the ability to deep crawl and index JavaScript, Google is continuing the enhancement in its techniques. The fact that Google is “all in” with Angular is a shred of evidence that they will resolve all the SEO issues soon. However, Google explicitly states that their rendering engine might not bring the compatibility with all the programming technology a webpage utilizes.”
They have suggested adhering to “progressive improvement” principles, emphasizing the focus on core web page content primary and other features and layers secondarily.
The most critical lesson that one can learn while serving technical SEO services is never to leave the indexing of your website to search engines only. Be in control to check your web page’s render or not. Google is entirely committed to AngularJS, and it will be a great deal for you to use this valuable platform to build websites more responsively. Ensure that you are not sacrificing valuable organic search traffic during the evolution.
