As websites become more advanced, website coding becomes more detailed and – sometimes – way too inflated.
The over-inflated code will usually bury the content on a website making it difficult for the search engine crawlers to find that awesome unique, relevant, and timely content to index.
In order for the popular AJAX (shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) coding to be search engine friendly (SEO friendly), website developers had to spend a great deal of time with over-complicated code. That was up until now.
Normally, I translate the geek to human for all our readers but deep website programming is something that even the best Human SEO cannot translate for all to understand. So, I’m going to put the options on the table and feel free to pick which option works best for you.
- Bing’s (Microsoft) Priniciple Program Manager, Fabrice Canel, has done a wonderful write-up of AJAX URLs and how the pushState function helps ease some of the SEO burden on website developers. Search Engine Optimization Best Practices for AJAX URLs does a great job of covering what AJAX URLs are, the new recommended SEO best practice for AJAX URLs, and linking strategies using pushState. If you’re a techie, this blog post is for you.
- For the rest of the human speaking world, I would suggest you share this article with your in-house web developers or speak with your content management system (CMS) consultants about how this may affect your website. Many CMS’ widgets and plugins use AJAX programming, which may or may not affect your search engine rankings.
Whether or not you are a technical genius, make sure to create an open discussion between your marketing and web development teams. Remember, your goal is to ensure that your website is utilizing all the SEO best practices available to increase your online success.