How Google handles JavaScript throughout the indexing process – Vercel
August 16, 2024
Understanding how search engines crawl, render, and index web pages is crucial for optimizing sites for search engines. Over the years, as search engines like Google change their processes, it’s tough to keep track of what works and doesn’t—especially with client-side JavaScript.
We’ve noticed that a number of old beliefs have stuck around and kept the community unsure about best practices for application SEO:
- “Google can’t render client-side JavaScript.”
- “Google treats JavaScript pages differently.”
- “Rendering queue and timing significantly impact SEO.”
- “JavaScript-heavy sites have slower page discovery.”
Source: How Google handles JavaScript throughout the indexing process – Vercel
There are some well established but perhaps not to well grounded beliefs about the impact of JavaScript driven sites on search engine discovery. Vercel set out to test these.