: Does generating page content on client side affect SEO? I'm working on a website where a lot of the page content is generated by java script by getting JSON from the server. This JSON is

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I'm working on a website where a lot of the page content is generated by javascript by getting JSON from the server. .... Are these techniques alright when it comes to search engines indexing my site? ... just to save on bandwidth.


This is a bad idea.

What you're describing is that you have some basic HTML loaded and then a call to a special file on the server using AJAX technology that returns codes which help form the rest of your page. If the call is mandatory for much of the readable content to load, then you may end up creating a poor user experience because no one wants to wait a long time to see the content they are searching for.

As far as bandwidth is concerned, you're not really saving bandwidth. In fact, you're using more because your idea requires the client to make one request to the initial page containing the Javascript required to request another page from the same server. Two requests cost more bandwidth than one request.

If you want to stand a chance to be indexed in search engines with your idea, make sure the content is loaded before the Javascript code is run, that way, people with browsers that have no Javascript support and/or Javascript disabled can still see what the site is about.

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