How to Manage JavaScript Rendering Issues in SEO

Together they can make it impossible for search engines to find and crawl your web pages. The good news is that there are steps you can take to resolve this rendering issue:

1. Use the correct referencing – HTML links need to reference <a> tags, along with href attributes to help search engines crawl and index the pages, while understanding your website structure
2. Examine the pre-rendered HTML – identify gaps between what is pre-rendered and what is expected
3. Reduce unnecessary code – use caching techniques, compress images, and reduce unnecessary code to optimise your website performance

Inaccessible Content Cannot Be Crawled

While it's essential for search engines to render a URL, there are on-page elements that may be inaccessible to the crawlers, due to broken links or missing content served in JavaScript, that the search engines cannot access. The most common causes include:

• JavaScript errors – syntax issues that make rendering difficult
• User interaction – Google cannot render your content if it requires users to interact with the page

In order to fix these rendering issues, you can:

1. JavaScript debug – debug and find issues and errors. Check for errors and logs regularly. Also test embedded JavaScript on different browsers
2. Website structure – create a logical website structure with clear instructions
3. Schema markup – add structured data to your web page to help search engines understand the context of your content 

Sections Cannot Be Crawled

When your web pages are correctly crawled, it is the only way to ensure your page is sent to the queue for rendering. Common reasons for this can include:

• Internal links cannot be crawled – this may be due to the internal links not being available in the pre-rendered HTML
• XML sitemap outdated – Google slows down when rendering your pages if your XML sitemap is outdated r missing

You can fix these JavaScript rendering issues easily by:

• Monitor your website performance regularly, identifying JavaScript issues
• Follow SEO best practices

Online Tools to Identify JavaScript Rendering Issues

Genie Crawl team recommends the following online tools to identify if your website is experiencing any JavaScript rendering issues:

• Google Search Console – insights into how Google crawls and indexes your website. This includes JavaScript related issues
• Lighthouse – an online tool provided by Chrome auditing site performance, accessibility, while highlighting JavaScript related issues
• Structured Data Testing Tool – ensures search engines understand JavaScript generated data correctly to improve SEO 

Conclusion

When you use JavaScript to build your website, you have a dynamic and interactive website. At the same time, this creates certain challenges for SEO. At Genie Crawl, we have an experienced and talented team who have knowledge on fixing JavaScript rendering issues, ensuring your site can be crawled and indexed efficiently. Contact us today for a free evaluation and quote.