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We asked our survey respondents some introductory questions to get a sense of their level of understanding about how Google crawls and renders JavaScript.
94.4% of SEOs said that understanding what content Googlebot sees when crawling websites is critical or very important.
41.6% said they definitely hadn't read or weren't sure if they'd read Google's documentation around JavaScript rendering.
10.6%of SEOs said they perfectly understand how Google crawls, renders & indexes JavaScript.
As expected, almost everyone surveyed (94.4%) said it was “critical” or “very important” to get a clear picture of what content Googlebot sees when crawling websites.
Interestingly, almost half of respondents (41.6%) said they hadn’t or weren’t sure if they had read Google’s documentation on JavaScript rendering.
It seems as though there’s a knowledge gap; despite over half of respondents (58.4%) saying they’d read Google’s documentation, much fewer respondents (10.6%) perfectly understand how Google crawls, renders, and indexes JavaScript.
“There’s a stark difference between wanting to understand and actually grasping how Google processes JavaScript. It’s clear: SEOs shouldn’t need to be JS experts to excel at their jobs. But SEOs need solid documentation and effective technologies to bridge the gap with engineering teams. Most JS fixes fall on developers, yet the burden of these issues unfairly lands on SEOs. It's high time the industry steps up, investing in web technologies that educate developers on best practices. Let’s remove the guesswork for SEOs once and for all."
Sam Torres is the Chief Digital Officer at Gray Dot Co
