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.
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
-
SEO Ranking: Can Child Theme Compete with Custom Theme?
Ranking for New York City commercial real estate is extremely competitive. We compete against: www.squarefoot.com, www.42floors.com, www.Loopnet.com, www.wework.com and a dozen other optimized sites. Our site was designed in 2012. We plan on upgrading it. From an SEO perspective, can we compete by purchasing a Wordpress real estate theme and customizing it into a child theme? Our better ranking competitors are using custom themes where the code has been very streamlined to make the sites quick and easy to index by spiders. Would we gain a significant edge by custom coding? This is somewhat technical for a business owner and I am trying to get my head around it. Our existing site is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com. Some of the themes we are considering are: -http://main.wpestatetheme.org/homepage -http://houzez01.favethemes.com/ -http://realhomes.inspirythemes.biz/property/ From an SEO perspective is creating a child theme from the above a good approach? Or will a custom theme give us an advantage. If there is an advantage is that edge so marginal that it is not significant? In terms of coding, is a custom site much more labor, 2x, 3x the time to code? Also is the maintenance of a custom site much more involved? Also, as a related question, my developer since 2012 has created many custom plugins for Wordpress. Is this a no, no? Will avoiding custom plugins add to the development cost? Even if we use a child theme from an existing real estate website, I would hope that the improved user interface will provide a boast in at least conversions if not SEO. Thanks, Alan
Web Design | | Kingalan10 -
Infinite Scroll and SEO - Is it enough to only link to the previous and next page in the pagination?
Hi all, We are implementing an eCommerce site where the results pages of the products will be visibile on one page (always loading new products when you scroll down the page). Now, I have read that the Google spiders cannot "load" new products scrolling down the page, hence the spider only sees the first few products of the results page. Our developer wants to implement a system where a users sees the first products on example.com/products Then scrolling down, he will see new products with the URL changing to example.com/page/2 and so on. Is it enough that we add a pagination link that goes from example.com/products to example.com/page/2 Then another link that goes from example.com/page/2 to example.com/page/3 and so on, so the Google spider can make his way through all the pages? Or is that too much deep linking and the spider wouldn't even crawl all the results pages? Any recommendations how to go about this? Many thanks in advance!
Web Design | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
Best SEO practice - Umbrella brand with several domains
Hi, we have several blogs and comparison sites on specific topics. All the domains rank on top positions in very competitive niche markets. We think that we can get more profit out of the domains when we put them under an umbrella brand. Customers that visit domain A can then also find products easily on domain B. We see this for example on health.com, with several brands in the top. To maintain or improve our rankings i'm looking for specific information for the link structure. For example, is it better to have the 'about us'/rel=author on each domain, with contributors on that specific domain or is it better to have them all in the (umbrella) brand domain. At the moment we have the structure like this: domainA.com, domainA.com/blog, domainA.com/about-us and domainB.com, domainB.com/blog, domainB.com/about-us. I think to maintain the rankings it is best to keep specific content (like blog/ about us) on the domain. So is it the best to just do side wide links with a logo (like health.com) and what about hosting? We work with wordpress, so all domains will be hosted on one ip? when we use the multiple site option of WP? All information on this topic is more than welcome 🙂
Web Design | | remkoallertz0 -
Mobile SEO vs. Usability - SinglePlatform
I have a restaurant client that we're setting up with SinglePlatform.com to distribute their menu and make sure all of the restaurant sites have updated information for their business. As part of SinglePlatform's service, they offer a mobile site. Normally we would just create a mobile site and make sure that it's optimized but this client isn't ready to invest in a customized mobile site yet. The mobile site we can get with SinglePlatform is very simple. Call, Menu, Address, View Full Website, Photos, General Info. I know this would make it much easier for mobile users to find information and contact them but it's not mobile best practices. Whatever main page they land on would redirect them to the home page of the mobile site (i.e. not a 1 to 1). We also won't have any Google Analytics information for this site. The question comes down to usability or SEO? I'm leaning toward the mobile site for now and sell them on a customized solution later. I guess I'm just looking for some verification or any insight. ZRVbARv
Web Design | | JaredDetroit0 -
What are the top 3 things you evaluate when contracted to SEO a website?
As a freelancer, what are the top 3 things you evaluate when contracted to SEO a website for a client?
Web Design | | StreetwiseReports0 -
SEO list for creating the *perfect* website
If you could build your website from scratch and have your developers do anything you want (within reason), what list of SEO requirements would you send them? Does anyone know of any good articles on the perfect SEO wish list? Happy Holidays!
Web Design | | MirandaP1 -
Wordpress SEO Change of Structure
Hi, I have a Wordpress SEO Question. I ran the SEOMOZ checker on my website and it discovered roughly 70 of my 250 blogs had a URL length problem. I have removed the year and month from the WP structure as I read elsewhere that it is not important. The blogs displayed as follows: domain.com/blog/2011/02/contents-of-the-blog and the new structure is: domain.com/blog/contents-of-the-blog I have resubmitted the new structure to Google Webmaster Tools XML and updating the on-page sitemap on my main site. My blog was cached on 25<sup>th</sup> October and seems to be caching every 7 days, my website cached on the 24th and I wonder if I should do any follow up work to ensure the content gets crawled properly. a) Individually 301 redirect the old URLs to the new. b) Individual Canonical links for each. c) Adding the old pages to the robots file and disallowing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | tdsnet0 -
Multilingual Website. Best SEO Strategy
Hello.
Web Design | | teconsite.com
We have a client that will extend his business to severak countries in Europe.
So far its main market was the Spanish one. In this market it works with his own domain that is the same that its brand name. The domain does not contain any important keyword but it has been working for 11 years: www.efutgol.com. In Spain has a good ranking. It ranks number 1 or number 2, it fluctuates. But it also sells to France and Portugal. In the France market they used a domain with exact match with the French keyword that they are interested in: www.equipementsfootball.com/. The same strategy www.equipamentosfutebol.com in Portugal. Both have number 1 for the main keyword in those Countries for that keyword Now they are going to sell in more countries.
The problem is that each website have a different CMS what makes necessary double maintenance. We are going to unificate in only one domain, one single design, one single CMS all websites. But were have doubts about SEO consequences of doing that What is the best thing for URLs?
www.efutgol.com/fr/ .....
www.efutgol.com/es/
www.efutgol.com / pt What should we do with the domains that are so well positioned in france and portugal? 301 redirect will work? What should we expect? What would you do? What things we should consider to keep the current position?0