How to Make React SEO-friendly

1. HOW TO MAKE REACT SEO-FRIENDLY

2. Why SEO is significant? As reported by Statista, in July 2022, Google held 83% of the global search market share, with Bing accounting for nearly 9% and Yahoo for 2.55%. Given these statistics, it is wise to align your SEO strategy with Google's best practices. To optimize React JS for SEO, we first need to understand the process of how Google ranks pages. Google uses a bot called Googlebot to crawl a website and index its content. The bots crawl the site's pages to discover new ones, and a robots.txt file can be used to specify which pages should be crawled. After crawling, the bots index the site's content by analyzing it to determine what the page is about. This information is stored in the Google index, a massive database of web page information. To be indexed effectively, all web content should be organized and displayed in a way that is easily understood by machines. The final step is serving and ranking, where Google uses its index to return relevant results when a user searches for something. However, the challenge with React JS lies in the use of JavaScript, which can make it difficult for search engines to crawl and understand. The diagram below from the Google Documentation provides a simplified explanation of how Google processes web apps and websites, though it is important to note that Googlebot is much more advanced.

3. The following points should be noted: Googlebot maintains a queue of all the URLs it needs to crawl and index in the future. When the crawler is not busy, it takes the next URL from the queue, requests it, and retrieves the HTML. After parsing the HTML, Googlebot determines that JavaScript needs to be executed, and the URL is added to a queue for rendering. The renderer then gathers and executes the JavaScript, returning the rendered HTML to its original location. The processing unit extracts all URL tags from the web page and adds them back to the crawl queue, and then Google indexes the content. Now that you have a better understanding of how Googlebot works, let's move on to addressing the challenges in optimizing search engine ranking and overall performance with React JS web apps and websites.

4. What Makes ReactJS SEO Challenging This overview of Googlebot, crawling, and indexing is just a basic introduction to the subject. However, it is important for software engineers to be aware of the potential issues search engines may face when trying to crawl and index React JS pages. The next step is to understand how developers can overcome these challenges in React JS SEO. When working on a project that heavily relies on SEO, it is advisable to hire ReactJS developers who have the expertise in creating user-friendly digital products. The indexing process is complex and slow It's widely known that React JS websites often encounter difficulties with Google searches and rely heavily on JavaScript. The Web Rendering Service (WRS) executes the JavaScript code after the bot has downloaded the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. Then, the WRS collects data from APIs and sends the content to Google's servers. Until all these steps are completed, the bot cannot locate new links and add them to the queue for crawling. This method is sequential and slower than indexing HTML pages.

5. What Makes ReactJS SEO Challenging Limited Crawling budget The limit on the number of pages search engine bots can crawl within a specific time frame is referred to as a crawling budget (usually five seconds per script). Many websites built with JavaScript experience indexing problems because Google has to wait more than five seconds for the scripts to load, execute, and process. If your site has slow scripts, the Google crawler will quickly run out of its crawling budget and stop before indexing it. Errors in JavaScript code Dealing with processing errors is different in HTML and JavaScript. A single mistake in the JavaScript code can prevent indexing, as the JavaScript parser is not tolerant of errors. The parser stops processing the current script and displays a SyntaxError as soon as it encounters a character in an unexpected place. This means that a single error or typo can render the entire script useless. If this happens during the Google indexing process, the Google bot will see the page as empty and index it as a page with no content.

6. What Makes ReactJS SEO Challenging Issues of indexing SPAs Single-page apps, or SPAs, are a popular type of web application that offers a seamless and quick experience for users. Instead of reloading a new page for each interaction, all content is dynamically loaded as needed on a single page. But while these apps are great for users, they can be a challenge for search engines. Here's the problem: if a search engine bot crawls your SPA before the content has fully loaded, it will see an empty page. And if your site is indexed as empty, it will result in a lower search ranking. So, it's crucial to make sure that your SPA is optimized for search engines to ensure it's properly indexed and can rank higher in search results.

7. Best Practices Following are a few of the best React JS SEO optimization techniques we can utilize to improve the search engine optimization of our React JS.js applications: Utilizing Isomorphic ReactJS Apps "Isomorphic" refers to having a similar form and structure in both the server and client sides. In the context of React JS, this means that the same components can be used on both the server and the client. Using an isomorphic approach, the server can display the React JS app and deliver the pre-rendered version to both users and search engines, so they can see the content right away. Popular frameworks like Next.js and Gatsby have made isomorphic components a popular choice, but it's important to note that they may look different from traditional React JS components. For example, they may use server-side code or contain API secrets. By using isomorphic React JS apps, you have control over whether the client can run scripts. If JavaScript is disabled, the server or browser will render all the code, making all the content and meta tags in the HTML and CSS files accessible to the browser or search engines. When JavaScript is enabled, only the first page is rendered on the server. The browser then uses the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files, and JavaScript starts to run, allowing the rest of the content to be loaded dynamically. This results in smoother user experiences because the first page loads faster than in a standard JavaScript framework.

8. SSR technique: NextJS features vs Gatsby features NextJS Gatsby Allows for full server-side rendering and Includes a lot of ready-to-use parts. Enables the transmission of data from any location. Supports the creation of static pages at build time. The tool is already performance-driven. Facilitates Hot Module Replacement: Real-time monitoring of all modifications. Broad open-source system. Capable of loading only JavaScript and CSS. Proper record keeping

9. Prerendering A popular way to make single and multi-page web apps more search engine friendly is through pre- rendering. When search engines can't process your pages correctly, pre-rendering comes in handy. Pre- rendering tools are specialized programs that detect requests to your website and if the request is from a bot, they will send a saved HTML version of your website. For regular user requests, the regular page will load. Using pre-rendering has several benefits like being able to run modern JavaScript and support all the latest web innovations, requires little to no changes to your codebase, and is easy to implement. However, it may not be suitable for pages that have frequently changing data and can take too long for bigger websites with many pages. Additionally, pre-rendering services are not free, and you need to rebuild the pre-rendered page each time you make changes to the content.

10. Conclusion In simpler terms, making sure that your ReactJS website is optimized for search engines (SEO) has become easier in recent years. However, single-page applications, which are common with ReactJS, can still be challenging for search engines to crawl and index. To overcome this, you can use pre-rendering or server-side rendering to make your website more visible to Google bots and boost your search engine ranking. Both options require extra time, money, and effort to ensure SEO friendliness, but it's worth it if you want your website to rank well in Google search results. If you want to learn more about using ReactJS for your website, reach out to us and connect with the best experts to answer all your questions.