AJAX SEO optimization (SMX East 2009)

AJAX…Good for SEO or Just Cleaning House?

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• About iCrossing

• AJAX – What is it? What it does?

• SEO Challenges with AJAX

• Tactical Suggestions

• SEO-Friendly AJAX Examples

• Key Takeaways

• Appendix

Overview

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• 600 employees

• 15 offices in the U.S. and Europe

• iCrossing clients include: Epson, Symantec, eBay, Adidas, BMW, Allianz, The Coca-Cola Company, Office Depot, PR Newswire, Toyota and Travelocity

• Technology-enabled service company with offerings at the cross roads of search, social, mobile, web development and analytics

About iCrossing

AJAX…What is it? What is does?

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AJAX – What is it?

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What is it?• (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)

is a group of web development techniques used on the client-side to create interactive web applications or rich Internet applications

What it does• AJAX enables client-side interaction

to display content between a browser and a server without requiring page loads

• Page content loads quickly and can create a compelling user-experience when displaying large amounts of data

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Common Uses for AJAX

• Maps• Brick & Mortar Locations• Glossaries• Start Pages• Mash-Ups• Calendars• much more…

AJAX ChallengesCrawling and Optimization

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AJAX Crawling Issues

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Extensive use of JavaScript• Bots can have difficulty crawling JavaScript

• Google can crawl JavaScript• Yahoo and Bing typically struggle with it• Some success with href linking to complete

URL within quotes and any commands outside URL quotes (ex. onclick, onmouseover)

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AJAX Crawling Issues

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Lack of Client-Side Crawlable Content• Content is stored server-side and is rendered via AJAX engine

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AJAX Crawling Issues

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Stop Crawl Parameters in URLs (#)• Bots typically do not parse data past the “#”• Data past the “#” is ignored

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AJAX Optimization Issues

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All Content is rendered under one URL• Mixed content themes dilute keyword relevancy

Lack of client-side content• No visibile on-page content for optimization• Applied keywords in title and meta data• Difficult for competitive terms• Primary opportunity is for brand-terms

Tactical Suggestions

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Tactical Suggestions

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Create “IDENTICAL” Alternative Content• Leverage JavaScript applications

such as SWFObject or BrowserHawk to render SEO-friendly version of content or URLs• Regular expression

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Tactical Suggestions

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JavaScript Navigation• Alter JavaScript Navigation to remove any commands within the URL quotes.• Reference JavaScript control externally and call file via class or ID attributes.

DOM Scripting / Hijax / Progressive Enhancement• Content / navigation crawled with JavaScript disabled (separation of content

HTML), style (CSS) and behavior (JavaScript)

Graceful Degradation• Enables page rendering with minimal loss of experience for older browsers or

with JavaScript disabled

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Tactical Suggestions

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Additional Crawlable Paths• Sitemap page• Footer navigation• Tiered sitemap structure

Supporting HTML Content• AJAX content renders with supporting HTML content

XML Sitemap file• Submit XML file of all URLs via sitemaps.org protocol

Whatever method chosen, ensure unique content is displayed with unique URLs, titles and meta data

SEO-Friendly ExamplesProof is in the SEO performance

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Bank Branch Locator

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SEO Tactics Deployed• Individual location URLs isolated from JavaScript controls• Tiered sitemap structure linked from homepage (home > state > city > map of

locations; no clean links to location pages)

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Bank Branch Locator

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Results• 36 keywords (9 non-branded, 27 branded)• Zero rankings within first 3 pages• 9 out of 10 pages indexed in Google, 0 in Yahoo or

Bing

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Music News / Charts Publisher

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SEO Tactics Deployed• SEO-friendly alternative URLs (removal of “#” from URLs via SWFObject) • All URLs contain unique page content (title, meta data, on-page content)• Clean internal navigation• Tiered-sitemap structure (home > charts > genre > 10 listings / page)

http://www.billboard.com/#/charts/rock-songs http://www.billboard.com/charts/rock-songs

2020

Music News / Charts Publisher

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Results• 36 keywords (29 non-branded, 5 branded), ~

5.4 mil. monthly searches (Google Exact Match)

• 68 first page rankings (65% of keyword set, Google, Yahoo and Bing)

• All pages indexed in Google, Yahoo & Bing

165

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www.billboard.com

en.wikipedia.org

www.mtv.com

music.aol.com

new.music.yahoo.com

www.amazon.com

www.rollingstone.com

www.vh1.com

www.nme.com

www.allmusic.com

# of First Page Rankings

2121

Music News / Charts Publisher

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Billboard is a leader in natural search traffic amongst it’s core-competitive set.

Key Takeaways

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• Ensure URLs are crawlable (JavaScript Navigation)

• Ensure all URLs contain unique page elements

• Ensure client-side content is visibile

• Create easy-to-crawl site navigation (tiered sitemaps, footer navigation, etc.)

• Solve for technical solutions for “#” and other obstacles

• Plan for SEO early in site / marketing process

Key Takeaways

Appendix

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• Google Advances in JavaScript http://searchengineland.com/google-io-new-advances-in-the-searchability-of-javascript-and-flash-but-is-it-enough-19881

• DOM Scripting and Hijax http://domscripting.com/blog/display/41, http://icant.co.uk/articles/from-dhtml-to-dom/from-dhtml-to-dom-scripting.html

• AJAX (Google Webmaster Tools)http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=81766

• Google and SWFObjecthttp://code.google.com/p/swfobject/

Appendix

Thank YouRichard Chavez

SEO DirectoriCrossing, Inc.480-282-6059

Richard.Chavez@iCrossing.comhttp://www.iCrossing.com