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Google’s Ajax Indexing Specification: Developer Talk

June 16, 2010
by Gradiva Couzin

Many websites built with Ajax contain a wealth of content that is hidden from search engines. Google’s specification for Ajax indexing, promises to fix all that. Here, we interview a site that recently implemented the specification. How did it work out for them?

In a recent post, we researched several examples of sites using the Google Ajax indexing specification. One that jumped out at us was Bookwhack.com (since rebranded to YourNextRead). YourNextRead.com is a website for socially sharing book reviews in a pleasant browsable environment. Says co-founder, Robert Boland: “YourNextRead combines simple one page navigation with multiple book reviews and user recommendations.” We spoke with Robert about his team’s choice to make their Ajax-generated content indexable on Google.

Gravity: Why did you decide to implement the Google specification for Ajax indexing on YourNextRead.com?

YourNextRead: Since we were starting a new project, we had the freedom to use the latest technology. We decided to develop in GWT Ajax [Gravity’s Note: “GWT” stands for Google Web Toolkit]. We looked into how to make YourNextRead crawlable and thought using Google’s new technique might give us an edge.

Gravity: Did you have an Ajax-based site previously that did not have the spec in place? If so, have you seen a difference between the old & new site performance in search?

We noticed a great improvement after implementing this technique on YourNextRead. Beforehand, none of the Ajax content was visible to the searchbots – only the index page was being crawled.

Gravity: I notice that your site doesn’t include degraded content for Yahoo! or Bing. Was this a conscious decision or do you plan to implement some other approach for Yahoo and Bing?

We have not included degraded content for Yahoo or Bing, as other development tasks have been prioritised at the moment. Google is the largest search engine and tends to lead the way on search engine standards. We believe/hope 😀 Yahoo and Bing will soon follow Google’s lead.

Gravity: Did you have any technical difficulties or challenges when implementing? Anything in Google’s instructions that could be clearer?

We did find it difficult to implement the specification at first. In particular, it was hard to find examples or advice on the web as very few other sites are using this technique.

Generally Google’s documentation was clear, although it was tricky to understand how to practically implement the section on ‘Creating HTML Snapshots’. Many of the websites we found describing the new technique focussed on the HTMLUnit implementation. However, we are using a PHP backend to generate much of our content so we could not use this. There are some pseudo-code snippets in the documentation to help with server-side content generation, and it took a while to get the results we wanted.

Gravity: How do you feel about the outcome and the indexing you’ve gotten for your site on Google?

We are still in the process of refining the method and our keywords. However, the indexing of YourNextRead has improved enormously. Webmaster tools indicated there are now many queries linking to our site, whereas previously, there was only one.

You can see for yourself with the attached graph of crawl stats, taken from Webmaster tools:

Gravity: Is there anything you’d like to share with any other website owners who are considering the specification?

The GWT forum is a great place to ask questions as some of Google’s staff are looking out for questions on the new spec and are happy to help. [Gravity’s note: See this thread on “Crawlable AJAX – jQuery Load” as an example.]

The ‘Fetch as Googlebot’ option in webmaster tools was invaluable for testing purposes. The spec would have been much more difficult to implement without this being available.

Gravity: Thanks for the interview!

We’re grateful that Robert was willing to share a few of his experiences with us and our readers! In future posts, we hope to connect with more sites that are implementing this new specification. If you have experience with Google’s Ajax indexing, we hope you’ll leave a comment sharing your thoughts!

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You’re Not Imagining Things: SEO Is Getting Harder for…

May 24, 2010
by Jennifer Grappone

Many people come to us, discouraged and puzzled about why their site has fallen in the ranks even though their site is optimized for all the right keywords. Others reach out to us for help with keyword optimization of their site’s text, mistakenly convinced that this is the only thing their site needs to succeed. Here are five reasons that gaining ranks with standard ranking tactics is harder than it used to be for the average site owner:

Keyword Optimization Isn’t as Important

Identifying keywords and using them to optimize your text used to be two of the easiest SEO tasks for the layperson (as well as the not-so-technical SEO). If you were a halfway decent writer, and could figure out the right keywords to include in your text, you used to be able to make some headway in the ranks. However, where there used to be a relatively straight path from keyword optimization to improved ranks, there are now several complicating factors. Now your thoughtful keyword strategy is also vying with:

Personalized search in Google, which causes a searcher’s past behavior to influence their search results
Real-time results in Google, which sometimes give fresh content and tweets an edge over older pages
Better contextualization: Type “corwin” into Google and you’ll get decent results for three very different Corwins: the publisher, the Animal Planet celebrity, and the town. Type “out of league” and Bing reasonably matches your query to results for the movie “She’s Out of My League.” The search engines have gotten much smarter about contextualization and phrase matching, and their ever-improving intelligence is becoming just as much of a rankings factor as your keyword optimization. (And, on a related note: remember when people used to optimize their sites for misspellings? The search engines make that irrelevant now.)

You’re Overloaded with Tools

You used to have only a few optimization tools to work with. Meta tags – go optimize ’em! Links – go get ’em! Thankfully, as SEO has gotten more complex, search engines are now giving you more tools and information to work with. But unfortunately, these tools and information can overwhelm and confuse. Canonical tags are extremely easy to use, and also very easy to mess up. Webmaster Tools give you tons of information, and at the same time lead many of us down the wrong path. (For example, with the data now available, you may be tempted to believe that a decline in site speed caused your ranks to plunge, but you’d probably be wrong.) With all of these elements to analyze and address, it’s difficult to identify what’s most important, which skills to brush up on (or outsource) and what’s worthy of your time and energy.

Web Technology has Outpaced SEO-Friendliness

E-commerce tools, blog publishing platforms and content management systems, AJAX, mobile devices, the proliferation of video…all of these technologies and more have made the web more exciting and dynamic! But in many cases, these features require specialized technical skills to prevent or remediate significant search engine indexing handicaps.

Everybody’s Doing It

After years of marginalization, SEO is finally on every website owner’s radar. SEO awareness has evolved to the point where most people are addressing keyword optimization and site indexing concerns when they build and maintain their sites. And I haven’t met a new client in years who isn’t already thinking through a link building strategy. Having an SEO-friendly site isn’t a competitive advantage for you any more; it’s a requirement. And, if my decade-plus in SEO has taught me anything, it’s this: when everybody is doing something, that thing becomes less powerful as a ranking factor. (See above – “Keyword Optimization Isn’t as Important”)

Rapid Evolution

“Hi, I’m Google, and I’ll be your search engine today. Our algorithm change du jour is the ‘Chef’s Surprise.’ Depending on your site, it will either be delicious or leave a foul taste in your mouth. You’ll be trying it whether you want it or not.” Yep, Google changes every day. I used to eschew algorithm-chasing, and refused to participate in obsessing over SEO gossip on a daily basis. I knocked it as a pointless way of life, but these days I’m convinced that it’s important to embrace that mindset, at least a little bit. This is something that SEO specialists have built into their schedule, but it’s not as simple for the average site owner to find the time to keep up with latest developments in search.

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It’s harder than it used to be to influence your site’s ranks using keyword optimization and link building tactics. So what should you do about it? Do what we do: Think big picture! Once you’ve nailed the basics: a search-friendly site, optimized text, and a well-targeted message, try something new to achieve a well-rounded online presence. Branch out into social media. Encourage positive reviews. Maybe shoot a little video if it’s a good fit for your audience. And use the information you glean from your analytics to make real changes on your site, not just to gain better ranks, but to improve engagement for the visitors you have.