Sitebulb JavaScript SEO Report

The first website I ever had to 'optimize' was built in Dreamweaver. Static HTML pages that you had to edit one by one.

Don't get me wrong, it was awful. But at least the HTML you could see in the back-end was the same as the source code on the page - and the same thing that Google would use for crawling and indexing.

A simpler time.

Fast forward 15 years, and the internet has grown up. We now have websites where you never get to see any HTML in the back-end, and the source code essentially looks like gibberish. This is due to a revolution in how websites are built, with JavaScript leading the charge.

For better or worse, the emergence and increasing dependence upon JavaScript has completely changed how SEOs need to think about technical SEO.

JavaScript is just more complicated. It's more opaque. It's difficult for non-developers to understand issues that JavaScript may be causing, and when these issues start to affect SEO, explaining their significance to clients or developers is extremely challenging.

This is what we thought, anyway. It's what seemed to be the case, anecdotally. And it's why we ran this study.

This report reveals: 

• the awareness level of this issue within the SEO community
• unique data pulled from Sitebulb's Chrome Crawler, highlighting usage patterns and common JavaScript issues impacting websites
• insight on the impact of JavaScript from expert SEOs

We think it paints a picture of where we are, as an industry. And perhaps, where we need to go.

- Patrick Hathaway