Here are some official answers on the subject: Notes on Ajax: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=81766
Don't be evil, Guidelines for Webmasters: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 5:04 AM, jos <[email protected]> wrote: > > Eric > > Just to make sure I understood your last point, we should be looking > for a search bot indicator > like a URL parameter or something, and if we see it we should render > our page as statically and > flat as possible? > > Thanks, > jos > > On Jan 24, 5:01 am, Eric Ayers <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Bryan, > > I understand your frustration. Unfortunately, due to the extremely > > competitive nature of web search, we here at Google can't say a lot about > > the Google bot or the roadmap for future improvements. Indexing > JavaScript > > apps is a general problem not particular to GWT. Obviously, this is one > of > > those problems everyone in the web apps & search community needs to keep > > coming back to in order to find better ways to solve it. > > > > Just to give you an idea of the complexity involved, the first "page" of > > JavaScript for GWT basically runs a big switch statement that loads a > > different script depending on which browser is running (which browser > should > > the googlebot run. Which bugs should it emulate?). It doesn't actually > > create the DOM until after the body of the document is finished loading > > (when does it know to start looking at the DOM?). Your app might be > > perfectly happy for the bot to index just the front page, but that is > still > > going to leave a huge swath of unhappy app developers. Another page > might > > present something on the first page that is not very indicative of the > > content, like: "this browser is not supported" or "Login or create an > > account" or "choose your region" using images before continuing. A page > > might have tabs or a menu with content that doesn't actually get attached > to > > the DOM until after the tabs are clicked and has a message ("click on the > > menu to ..."). > > > > Here's some spin for you: I think the message from the search side of > > search engines isn't "Don't use JavaScript". Instead, the message is to > > provide a page of HTML that faithfully describes your app and/or its > content > > when the search engine crawls your page. I know its more work, but > think > > about how that might actually be an opportunity for Web 2.0 authors. > > > > -Eric. > > > > > > > > On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 2:59 AM, bryanb <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > That's the point of my query/question, Why can't the Google bot > > > understand Javascript ? As I said originally, using Firebug I can see > > > what the Javascript has rendered to the DOM, so there's no good reason > > > the Google bot can;t do the same. Granted, it cannot follow links or > > > any of the possibly unlimited execution paths in the Javascript, but > > > it should be able to render the initial state of the page, and > > > consequently index stuff on that page. Likewise if there is a site map > > > with history tags, it should be able to render the initial state of > > > each of those pages and index accordingly. The initial state is really > > > all you want indexed anyway - if I do a Google search for "fubar", I > > > reasonably expect the URLs returned to point to a page with "fubar" > > > on it somewhere i.e. for a GWT app the initial state of that page. > > > > > It just seems a bit strange that one part of Google has created a tool > > > for making really usable web sites, but the search side of Google says > > > "don''t use Javascript" if you want to be indexed. > > > > -- > > Eric Z. Ayers - GWT Team - Atlanta, GA USAhttp:// > code.google.com/webtoolkit/ > > > -- Eric Z. Ayers - GWT Team - Atlanta, GA USA http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
