Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Lazy Loading of Blog Posts and Crawl Depths
-
Hi Moz Fans,
We are looking at our blog and improving the content as much as we can for SEO purposes, but we have hit a bit of a blank in terms of lazy loading implications and issues with crawl depths.
We introduced lazy loading onto the blog home page to increase site speed initially and it works well with infinite scroll, but we were wondering whether this would cause any issues regarding SEO.
A lot of the resources online seem to be conflicting and some are very outdated, so some clarification on what is best in terms of lazy loading and crawl depths for blogs, would be fantastic!
I hope someone can help and give us some up to date insights - If you need anymore information, I'll reply ASAP
-
This is fantastic - Thank you!
-
Lazy load and infinite scroll are absolutely not the same thing, as far as search crawlers are concerned.
Lazy-loaded content, if it exists in the dom of the page will be indexed but it's importance will likely be reduced (any content that requires user interaction to see is reduced in ranking value).
But because infinite scroll is unmanageable for the crawler (it's not going to stay on one page and keep crawling for hours as every blog post rolls into view) Google's John Mueller has said the crawler will simply stop at the bottom of the initial page load.
This webinar/discussion on crawl and rendering from just last week included G's John Mueller and a Google engineer and will give you exactly the info you're looking for, right from the horse's mouth, Victoria.
To consider though - the blog's index page shouldn't be the primary source for the blog's content anyway - the individual permalinked post URLs are what should be crawled and ranking for the individual post content. And the xml sitemap should be the primary source for google's discovery of those URLs. Though obviously linking from authoritative pages will help the posts, but that's going to change every time the blog index page updates anyway. Also, did you know that you can submit the blog's RSS feed as a sitemap in addition to the xml sitemap? It's the fastest way I've found of getting new blog posts crawled/indexed.
Hope that helps!
Paul
-
I'm afraid I don't have an insight into how Google crawls with lazy loading.
Which works better for your user, pagination or lazy loading? I wouldn't worry about lazy loading and Google. If you're worried about getting pages indexed then I would make sure you've got a sitemap that works correctly.
-
Great, thank you
Do you have any insight into crawl depth too?
At what point would Google stop crawling the page with lazy loading? Is it best to use pagination as opposed to infinite scroll? -
With lazy loading, the code can actually still be seen in the source code. That's what Google uses, so you should be fine with using this as it's becoming a common practice now.
-
Yes, it's similar to the BBC page and loads when it is needed by the user so to speak.
It increased the site loading, but do you know at what point Google would stop indexing the content on our site?
How do we ensure that the posts are being crawled and is pagination the best way to go?
-
I'd have to say, not too familiar with the method you are using, but I take it the idea is elements of the page load as you scroll like BBC?
If it decreases the load time of the site that is good for both direct and indirect SEO, But the key thing is can Google see the contents of the page or not? - Use Google Search Console and fetch the page to see if it contains the content.
Also, Google will not hang around on your site, if it doesn't serve the content within a reasonable amount of time it will bounce off to the next page, or the next site to crawl. It's harsh, but it's a fact.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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 to create a smooth blog migration from subdomain to subfolder main?
Hi mozzers, We have decided to migrate the blog subdomain to the domain's subfolder (blog.example.com to example.com/blog). To do this the most effective way and avoid impact SEO negatively I believe I have to follow this checklist: Create a list of all 301 redirects from blog.example.com/post-1 to example.com/post-1 Make sure title tags remain the same on main domain Make sure internal links remain the same Is there something else I am missing? Any other best practices? I also would like to have all blog post as AMPs. Any recommendations if this something we should do since we are not a media site? Any other tips on successfully implementing those types of pages? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 25, 2019, 12:09 PM | Ty19861 -
Pagination loading with using AJAX. Should I change this?
Hello, while I was checking this site; http://www.disfracessimon.com/disfraces-adultos-16.html I found that the pagination is working this way http://www.disfracessimon.com/disfraces-adultos-16.html#/page-2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 11, 2015, 6:24 AM | teconsite
http://www.disfracessimon.com/disfraces-adultos-16.html#/page-3 and content is being loaded using AJAX. So, google is not getting the paginated results. Is this a big issue or there is no problem?
Should I create a link for See All Products or there is not a big issue? Thank you!0 -
My blog is indexing only the archive and category pages
Hi there MOZ community. I am new to the QandA and have a question. I have a blog Its been live for months - but I can not get the posts to rank in the serps. Oddly only the categories rank. The posts are crawled it seems - but seen as less important for a reason I don't understand. Can anyone here help with this? See here for what i mean. I have had several wp sites rank well in the serps - and the posts do much better. Than the categories or archives - super odd. Thanks to all for help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 9, 2015, 11:51 AM | walletapp0 -
Blog On Subdomain - Do backlinks to the blog posts on Subdomain count as links for main site?
I want to put blog on my site. The IT department is asking that I use a subdomain (myblog.mysite.com) instead of a subfolder (mysite.com/myblog). I am worried b/c it was my understanding that any links I get to my blog posts (if on subdomain) will not count toward the main site (search engines would view almost as other website). The main purpose of this blog is to attract backlinks. That is why I prefer the subfolder location for the Blog. Can anyone tell me if I am thinking about this right? Another solution I am being offered is to use a reverse proxy. Thoughts? Thank you for your time.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 15, 2014, 5:34 PM | ecerbone0 -
Moving blog to a subdomain, how can I help it rank?
Hi all, We recently moved our blog to a sub-domain where it is hosted on Wordpress. It was very recent and we're actively working on the SEO, but any pointers on getting the subdomain to rank higher than the old blog posts would be terrific. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 4, 2014, 3:46 PM | DigitalMoz0 -
Is Using a Question, Answer Format Appropriate for a Blog? Is a 300 Word Micro Blog An SEO Plus?
My PR agency has suggested a question answer format be incorporated in my blog. They suggest a microblog with a single sentence question and an answer of about 300 words. My blog currently has about 35 posts. I would like to ramp up blog entries to about one or two per week of these "mini blog" posts. The format of the new blog begins as a question with the responses being paragraphs that do not use headings. My concerns are as follows: 1. No headings in an answer of 300 words will fail to provide Google with context regarding the content's meaning. Everything I have read about SEO suggests text be broken up in short sections and that it be divided by headings (preferably H2s). I very much like my agency's concept for a question answer format blog. It provides very practical info for visitors. How can I use it in a manner that supports SEO best practices? 2. According to a reputable SEO firm that has been assisting me, Google does not consider a blog post of less than 600 words to be superior quality. They told me that blog posts of 300 words, from an SEO purpose will not be a great helpful, that the content will not be rich enough to generate incoming links. Is this really the case? What if this abbreviated content is very well written and engaging? If so, is 300 words sufficient? From the visitor's perspective I am not sure they would have the patience to read 600 words when 300 words is more than than enough to answer these basic questions. From a PR perspective I think the shorter content in a question answer format is superior at least for my line of business (commercial real estate brokerage). 3. If 500-600 words is the minimum word count, and headings are necessary, what is the best way to execute a question and answer blog format? The purpose of this blog is to provide very useful info to my visitors while generating incoming links to that will boast my rankings. Thanks in advance for your feedback!!! Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 7, 2014, 2:25 PM | Kingalan10 -
Blog posts not showing in serps for exact match title search
hi- my first client ranks #1 for the exact phrase of each blog post title the 2nd client doesnt rank anywhere when i search for the exact post title 2nd client has robots.txt User-agent: *
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 26, 2013, 2:30 PM | Ezpro9
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/ so that shouldnt noindex any posts right? his site ranks for many kw's - but oddly none of his blog posts are anywhere to be found - i dont mean for a kw search - i mean for searching for the entire title he doesnt rank anywhere in first 5 pages for any of 6-7 posts i checked any idea what could cause this? thanks0 -
Create a new XML Sitemap for a blog subdomain?
What would be the best way to go about this? A site just put a blog on http://blog.domain.com/ Should there be a separate XML Sitemap for that particular subdomain or should the original XML Sitemap for the main domain be sufficient? Looking forward to your responses. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Apr 4, 2011, 3:16 PM | iAnalyst.com0