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Understanding JavaScript SEO
We asked our survey respondents some introductory questions to get a sense of their level of understanding about how Google crawls and renders JavaScript.
Do you understand how Google crawls, renders, and indexes JavaScript?
Only 7.1% of surveyed SEOs don’t understand how Google crawls, renders, and indexes JavaScript. This is lower than last year (10%). The proportion of SEOs with a “good” or “advanced” understanding has increased (66.4% in total compared to 50.4%), with fewer SEOs saying that they only “know the basics”. These results show that there has been an improvement in understanding since the 2024 Report (perhaps due to extra explanatory resources having been created and accessed).
“For me, JavaScript is one of the more important areas of technical SEO as we forge ahead in the AI era. Understanding how different crawlers, browsers, and AI platforms fetch and render JavaScript content is vital. The data showing that 1 in 3 SEOs only know the basics of JavaScript, or less, tells me that we need to be investing more into the technical education of SEOs.”
Based on your understanding, which LLM crawlers render JavaScript?
This is a brand new question for this year’s report, since LLMs are becoming key players in search. The results are alarming. Almost a third (29.8%) of SEOs surveyed responded that they had “no idea”, while another third (33.9%) said that “none” of the LLM crawlers listed render JavaScript. Gemini (Googlebot) was in that list and just over a third of respondents (35.9%) said that it renders JavaScript. This is interesting, considering that two-thirds of SEOs claimed to have a “good” or “advanced” understanding of how Google crawls, renders, and indexes JavaScript. 7.1% of respondents believed that ChatGPT-User renders JavaScript, with ClaudeBot, GPTBot, and PerplexityBot also being selected by some (5.4%, 4.7% and 4.7% respectively). It is clear that the majority of the SEO community just isn’t sure which LLM crawlers render JavaScript and which don’t.
“It's encouraging to see that more SEOs are understanding the impact of JavaScript on their programs. The improvement in understanding since last year's report shows the industry is making real progress in this critical area. At the same time, it's not surprising that there's so much confusion around which AI crawlers can render JavaScript or not. This space is constantly changing, and keeping up takes significant time and effort. As these tools continue to grow and develop, the technical requirements for visibility will keep shifting, making it even more important for SEOs to stay informed about rendering capabilities across different platforms.”
