Javascript, PhP and SEO Impact?
-
What are the Pro's and Con's of using Java Script and PHP in a site when factoring in SEO?
-
Alan's answer is spot on.
Avoid javaScript or carefully follow best-practices so Google can crawl all content without reading javaScript. Alan is exactly right when he said: never count on Google crawling through your JavaScript to find content, but also never count on being able to hide anything from Google via JavaScript.
Whether you use PHP or not is not directly relevant. PHP is executed server-side, so Google never sees your PHP code and doesn't care. What matters is whether your programmer writes PHP code that will generate search friendly HTML code, url structure, etc.
-
JavaScript is one of several technologies that offers severe limitations in search engines and their ability to properly see content, then just as important but often overlooked, properly and cleanly evaluate that content from an SEO perspective.
Specific considerations:
- Google does a "fair" job at discovering content passed through JavaScript (either on-page or at the code level)
- A "fair" job means it's hit and miss as to whether their system can actually find that content
- Whatever content the Google system CAN find via JavaScript is NOT necessarily able to be used to properly evaluate content intent, focus or relationship to other content
So - the best practices recommendation is if you want/need content to be found and properly evaluated by Google (or Bing) do NOT pass it through JavaScript.
And also, if you want to HIDE content from Google, don't assume you can successfully do so via JavaScript either.
As for PHP, its the most widely adopted and utilized web programming language out there. The language by itself is essentially SEO neutral. It's all in how a programmer utilized PHP that matters. In the hands of a programmer that either truly understands SEO or collaborates closely with an SEO expert (who also understands the limitations/pitfalls that can arise with "bad" (SEO-unfriendly) PHP coding, it's a great language.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How is Single Page Application (SPA) bad for SEO
Hi guys. I am quite inspired of SPA technique. It's really amazing when all your interaction with the site is going on the fly and you don't see any page reloads. I've started implementing the site with this instruction and already found nice guys to make the design. The only downside of the using SPA which I can see **is the **SEO part. That's because the URL does not really change and different pages don't have their unique URL addresses.
Web Design | | Billy_gym
Actually they have, but it looks like: yoursite.com/#/products yoursite.com/#/prices yoursite.com/#/contact So all of them goes after # and being just anchors. For Google this mean all of these pages is just yoursite.com/ My question is what is really proven method to implement the URL structure in Single Page Application, so all the pages indexed by Google correctly (sorry I don't mention the other search engines because of market share). The other question, of course, is examples. It will be great to see real life site examples, better authority sites, which use SPA technique and well indexed by search engines.1 -
Migration from HTML to Wordpress - SEO Implications?
I am in the process of having a wordpress site developed to replace my current HTML site. (I currently have my website in html and a blog in wordpress in a sub directory). I am doing this in phases to try and preserve as much of my good rankings as possible. My first phase is to replicate my site with the exact same pages, meta data, and site structure. I'm hoping that google will see this as not much change and not change my rankings for the worse. I also made it a goal that my site speed tests be at least equal to what they are now. We will have to 301 all of the URLs however since it will be going from /example.html to /example. I believe my blog will also need to move into the root directory as well, so I need to 301 all of those pages. I plan to wait a couple months for Phase 2. Phase 2 involves replacing old content (photo galleries), and introducing new content (virtual tours, videos, new pages, etc.) One of my reasons for moving to wordpress is to keep up with current trends a little easier since I have very little time. (I am owner, website maintainer, SEO - all on my own). My question here is three parts. 1. Do you think this strategy will work to preserve my current rankings? 2. Do you have any lessons learned or advice to share with me to make this as smooth as possible? 3. Do I really need to wait to add new content? I might get antsy and want to do it sooner! 🙂 Thank you in advance!
Web Design | | CalicoKitty20001 -
URL Structure's Effect on SEO
Hello all, I have a client who currently has a very poor URL structure. As it stands, their URLs are formatted in the following manner: http://www.domain.com/category/subcategory/page In all my years of SEO, however, I have always tried to implement the following format: http://www.domain.com/category/page The web designer for this particular project has been very reluctant to change the structure for obvious reasons, but I'm convinced that by modifying the URL structure, SEO will improve. I am correct in thinking this? Likewise, if I am able to get the URL structure changed, what do I need to look out for to make sure we don't lose any traction for our keyword terms? Any and all insight/suggestions is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!
Web Design | | maxcarnage0 -
Are Carousels Bad for SEO?
My real estate web site was migrated form Drupal to Wordpress last July. The ranking have dropped a lot since migration. One of the things we changed is that we have added two carousels to the home page. Most of the text is below the carousels. Is this bad for SEO? Thanks,
Web Design | | Kingalan1
Alan1 -
Drupal SEO - Concerns about cloaking
It appears that core Drupal includes a CSS style that automatically generates an tag for any* or > ## Main menu This uses the CSS to create a 1px1px header with that text that is absolutely positioned in the top left hand corner. Essentially, hidden and unreadable to humans and presumably also useless to even screen readers. There is some discussion of the reasoning for including this functionality as standard here: [http://drupal.org/node/1392510](http://drupal.org/node/1392510 "http://drupal.org/node/1392510") I'm not convinced of its use/validity/helpfulness from an SEO perspective so there's a few questions that arise out of this. 1. Is there a valid non-SEO reason for leaving this as the default rather than giving ourselves full control over our ## tags? 2. Could this be seen as cloaking by creating hidden/invisible elements that are used by the search engines as ranking factors? Update: http://www.seobythesea.com/2013/03/google-invisible-text-hidden-links/ Google's latest patent appears to deal with this topic. The patent document even makes explicit reference to the practice of hiding text in ## tags that are invisible to users and are not proper headings. Anyone have any thoughts on what SEOs using Drupal should be doing about this?
Web Design | | Tinhat1 -
Can SEO Moz perform a full site crawl and provide a report showing all URLs within an existing domain?
We are conducting a site redesign and need to get an idea of all pages that are out there on our domain (in some report fashion). This would help for discovery and cleanup as we re-work the site and move to a new CMS. Thanks
Web Design | | DCondon0 -
SEO Considerations for a Platform Change
We are getting ready to move our e-commerce platform from Zencart to Magento as the original Zencart framework is pretty dated. while I'm excited to move to a more modern platform, I'm terrified at the potential SEO risk involved with doing so given that all URLs will likely be different and we're considering updating many product listings. Almost all of the site's traffic is organic, so maintaining rankings is extremely important. I'd love any advice, but especially that related to: Best way to redirect all new URLs sitewide The prudence of heavily editing product listings at the same time of redirecting the URL (i.e. updating product descriptions) Site structure: Should I strive to keep the new site link structure as similar to the old as possible? Resources or guides on transitioning a site from a SEO perspective Other major facets I'm missing I appreciate any help or sights you can offer! Thank you....
Web Design | | AndrewY0 -
SEO ethical practice in question
A family friend asked me to take a look at her website. www.designsbymaida.com First thing i noticed is what seemed a 301 redirect or a forward to http://funktionaldesignstudios.com/dbm-old/ So her site is hosted with what it looks like, in his site(funktonaldesigns). What does this means in terms of how google sees her site and in terms of SEO. My thought is that he is boosting his domain name. He is getting the link juice. Thanks for the insight and help.
Web Design | | QualityHosting1