Auto-reload script & SEO

[Oren1]

Hello,

Does adding a script to my site's header which auto-reload my site every 5 minutes hurts SEO in anyway?

I see it does change some of the data in Google-Analytics, such as "Average Session duration" for example.

The script is:

setTimeout(function() {
location.reload();
}, 300000);

Thanks

[Dimitri]

As long as the reload is just to update the page (with latest stuff for example), I think it's okay.

Search engines might notice that you have js reload script, but they should see you are reloading the same page, and not trying to redirect the visitors somewhere else.

I see it does change some of the data in Google-Analytics, such as "Average Session duration" for example.

of-course :)

edit: if you are running adsense (or other ad network), be careful, the reload of the page might be against the TOS, (because it produces artificial impressions).

[NickMNS]

First the big question, WHY?
Why do you need to reload an entire page every 5 minutes, what are you trying to achieve with this?

Second, is it bad for SEO?
Short answer is yes. It is terrible for users. Users are going to hate you for it (eating up bandwidth for no reason), they wont come back, they wont link to your site and your site wont rank.

if you are running adsense (or other ad network), be careful, the reload of the page might be against the TOS.

I can't speak to other ad networks, but for Adsense it isn't "might be against the TOS", it is absolutely against TOS. There are work arounds, but it is very much dependent on the why?

[Dimitri]

This is what the WW is doing on the recent posts page :), and to me it's rather convenient , instead of refreshing the page manually. However, it's true that with Ajax (for example) it could be better (excepting for those with js disabled).

[NickMNS]

This is what the WW is doing on the recent posts page :),

Yes and it is annoying.

When on WW I'm on desktop so it is less annoying, but users on phones that pay for data have to pay for bandwidth every 5 minutes whether or not there is anything new. It is a waste.

From server perspective, if you have many users sitting on a page waiting, they will be sending requests to server every 5 minutes, often for nothing, more waste.

If a post is made immediately after the last refresh then one needs to wait another 5 minutes before seeing it. If one is waiting for a response, say in a heated discussion, this can cause users to be hitting refresh button frequently causing even more useless load on the server.

Another issue is that if one wants to check if there is a new post available, then only do a Fetch request for that post, not for the entire page, it serves no purpose. The OP is suggesting location.reload() which reloads the entire page. More waste.

But this discussion is somewhat moot, because we don't know what the OP wants to achieve. Is the reload there to artificially increase pageviews, show more ads, get new content or whatever.