OK, so we know that it can be tricky to optimize a website that uses Ajax.
But will Ajax influence ranking? Basically, if the Google bot had a hard time crawling the page, but was able to, will that influence how the page is ranked?
Or is ranking a totally different issue from indexing?
setzer
8:23 pm on Jul 12, 2012 (gmt 0)
Google will still see the page but ajax content isn't crawled by default - so yes, if you have content that you want ranking but it's delivered via ajax request then there's special steps you need to take in regards to URL structure.
[edited by: tedster at 9:58 pm (utc) on Jul 12, 2012] [edit reason] make link clickable [/edit]
aegir
9:24 pm on Jul 12, 2012 (gmt 0)
My pages *are* being indexed, but the ranking is much worse than before I changed the website a year ago. just wondering if Ajax is to blame or if it's something else.
setzer
9:55 pm on Jul 12, 2012 (gmt 0)
The thing you need to consider is this: do the ajax controls affect what content is displayed? I'm not sure what you're using ajax for, so it's impossible to say.
Google will only see what's displayed in a non JS browser by default. So if the content displayed on page *without* JS has changed since, that could have affected your ranking, yes.
If you've just implemented an Ajax-driven favorite button, sort options, etc that's not going to impact ranking.
aegir
10:44 pm on Jul 12, 2012 (gmt 0)
Yes, ajax controls what content is displayed.
So using Ajax will not only affect if a page gets indexed or not, it will also affect the ranking?
