CODEWITHSUNDEEP
jqueryajaxseo
mmc
mmc

Reputation: 17414

SEO implications of using jQuery to include extra content at page load

I have a client who is planning to implement a new global navigation across hundreds of their domains.

To keep this from being a content management nightmare, there is a single service which is going to serve the HTML content of this navigation.

This service is called via jQuery AJAX call and the response inserted at the top of all of these sites when the page is loaded. So the only modification to the individual sites is the inclusion of the small javascript that binds the javascript request to the $(document).ready() event.

They would like for the links contained in the navigation to help with their SEO. Is there any way to make this scheme SEO friendly? Or is it likely to work already? I've seen several references to the Googlebot starting to follow GET and even POST AJAX requests, but SEO is hardly my area of expertise.

EDIT: The new global navigation is from site to site ONLY. It does not affect the ability for each of the sites to be used. There are even cases (mobile, older browsers) where we may not show it at all. The main navigation for these sites is not in JavaScript. This is EXTRA navigation, to introduce users to the fact that there are other brands available (due to a merger).

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1045

Answers (2)

dana
dana

Reputation: 18155

A better way to do this would be to have each site dynamically fetch its navigation using server side code. You would want to maintain a cached copy of this navigation on each site to help with performance and also in case the main/source site goes down. The Google techniques to making AJAX crawlable usually involve some server-side intervention.

EDIT: Cost Effective Hack Approach

You are going to have to distribute a snippit of JavaScript to all of these sites. In your snippit, add a <noscript> tag with link back to a static page containing all links you wish to make searchable. For example:

<noscript>
<a href="http://www.mainsite.com/list_of_all_sites.html">List of all Sites</a>
</noscript>
<script type="text/javascript">
// load menu using jQuery
</script>

The search engines will definitely index the content within the <noscript> tag and users with modern browsers can use the JavaScript menu.

Upvotes: 2

John Conde
John Conde

Reputation: 219934

Using JavaScript to power your site navigation is not a good idea. It's not search engine friendly unless you use Google's crawlable Ajax proposal. Unfortunately this only works for Google so you'll be excluding approximately 33% of the search market if you use it. And even then, it's still a very bad idea.

If you're going to do this you'll need to take advantage of every opportunity to help the search engines find your pages like using HTML and XML sitemaps. But the natural linking hierarchy created by navigation menus is lost and that's gonna hurt your SEO efforts.

Upvotes: 0

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