Difference between cached view and Google fetch and render view

[ACFinLA]

I work on a site with a few page types that use JavaScript to populate a long list of products with various elements (image, description and link to the full product page). These pages are basically category pages that help users quickly scroll through long lists of items. We do it this way to help the pages load quickly on mobile devices.

Google indexes these pages, and some rank very well (Top 5). But, Google's cached view does not show the individual product listings that are rendered by JavaScript. You basically see a blank page with no images, text, links, etc, except for header and footer links. However, their fetch and render tool shows the full view that the user would see.

My question is, does anyone know if Google is passing page rank from these pages to the product pages via the links embedded in the JavaScript, and does the content rendered by Javascript influence rankings for these pages, or is it ignored?

[aakk9999]

What happens if you search for some text in quotes for the image description that loads via JavaScript? Does Google show the page or not? You may need to use site command in conjunction with the text as well as you may need to click "show search results with the omitted results included."

Alternatively, you may want to set up the test yourself - perhaps change a description of the product in the product listing adding a unique text as a part of description (different to what you show on the product page). Do this for the product where you need to scroll down a bit to see it.

Wait for Google to index the page and then search for that unique text in quotes and see if Google shows it. If it sees it, it is *likely* that links embedded in JavaScript are seen as any other links.