CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptajaxhtmlseo
Alpha2k
Alpha2k

Reputation: 2241

Server side vs client side website

We have to build a website and we have to chose where to manage the content, in the server (PHP or JSP) or on the client (JavaScript).

This article: http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2358775/seo-strategies-for-javascript-heavy-single-page-applications-or-ajax-sites enlighted me a bit but Im still doubting.

Good SEO is the most important thing to achieve. Can anyone relate if same SEO results are possible for the same website built client side vs server side? Spiders nowadays (Google mostly) can properly crawl pushState and its easier for the developing team to code in JavaScript than any other server-side language but we still dont know how good SEO can be with mostly JavaScript.

In case we end up doing it client-side the server will only answer AJAX calls with JSON so most work will be done on the clients. The webpage is pretty heavy on content and we would like to avoid doing it on server-side to refresh content every time...

But again, SEO is most important overall. JavaScript would manage content faster (and other benefits) but how far can it go against a server-side webpage?

Edit: please dont vote to close as opinion based, im looking for those who really experienced this and can relate based on facts, thanks.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 212

Answers (1)

Jérôme Verstrynge
Jérôme Verstrynge

Reputation: 59576

There is only one real SEO issue at stake here: content accessibility. Some search engines don't execute Javascript as part of crawling and indexing. So if your content cannot be accessed with a URL defined in a sitemap without using Javascript, then such content will not be indexed and ranked.

If you don't care about such search engines, then as long as you implement pushState() and a complete sitemap.xml properly, there is no SEO difference between a server side or client side website.

Upvotes: 3

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