Google explains the importance of choosing the right rendering strategies for your site design to minimize JavaScript issues and maximize your site’s SEO for search engines.
Rendering strategies and website performance
Google’s Search Relations team recently warned that AI search crawlers have problems processing sites that over-use JavaScript. We recently covered that topic and Google’s Martin Splitt’s recommendations on identifying JavaScript issues on your site.
Splitt, a Google Developer Advocate, has now released an episode of Google’s Search Central Lightning Talks that focuses on rendering strategies. In his video, Splitt explains the different rendering methods and advises which ones reduce JavaScript processing problems and help maximize your site’s visibility in the modern era of AI search crawlers.
Rendering recap
In the simplest terms, rendering converts your site’s code into viewable, interactive web content. An example is when Googlebot (or other AI search crawlers) reads your site’s code and assesses your page content to determine its structure, quality, relevance to a specific subject, and whether to rank it.
Splitt explains what rendering means relative to websites, saying:
- “Rendering in this context is the process of pulling data into a template. There are different strategies as to where and when this happens, so let’s take a look together.”
Splitt then explains the three main rendering strategies:
- Pre-Rendering
- Server-Side Rendering
- Client-Side Rendering
Rendering, JavaScript overuse, and SEO
As you know, the recent topic of conversation on Google Search Central has been the problems AI crawlers have processing websites over-using JavaScript, decreasing its visibility in search results.
To tackle this problem on a rendering level, Splitt advises using pre-rendering or server-side rendering to ensure AI crawlers can process and deliver your content to users.
Splitt, however, says there isn’t a one-size-fits-all rendering solution and recommends focusing on what the website needs, saying:
- “In the end, that depends on a bunch of factors, such as what does your website do? How often does the content change? What kind of interactions do you want to support? And what kind of resources do you have to build, run, and maintain your setup?”
Splitt warns against overusing client-side rendering because it can cause content visibility issues and also advises using the hydration approach, which can improve SEO.
Learn more about rendering strategies
Matt G. Southern at Search Engine Journal explores Splitt’s video in greater depth and explains it in technical detail. It’s a great post, and I highly recommend reading it.Check out the video below to learn all you need to know about Splitt’s recommended rendering strategies.
