Ajax and static links

[clyro98]

Hi all

I am managing a new web development that is currently in the tech design phase. I have had a few paranoid concerns that SEO will be a problem on a few pages so would love to get some advice from experts to put my mind at rest!

We have a selection of products that I would like indexed. Each one can be found via and Ajax browser that narrows down a users choice to a final list.

1) i have been assured that if you preload the ajax selection then spiders can find and follow the products on the initial page but not any other products that would require ajax selections. Is this true?

2) The preloaded ajax results for the products are likely to change weekly hence some of the products will not be available to the spiders after a certain amount of time. Does this mean that the ranking of the product pages that are no longer preloaded will drop when the spiders cant find the link? Or is it sufficient to use an XML site map to show that the page are still there? As a solution should we set up alternative static category pages for the products to make sure?

Many thanks,

Matt

[Webnauts]

Using the <NOSCRIPT> tag is certainly a predictable and stable way of providing the equivalent alternative to Ajax if you really want to use Ajax. Some additional tips for Ajax and SEO: AJAX and SEO

But if you did not begin building those applications, I would suggest you to have a look at this alternative solution: Particletree » The Hows and Whys of Degradable Ajax

If I was you, I would go for the last option.

[clyro98]

Thanks for your help. I am also interested in the second part of my question though with regard to providing a link to a product one month, getting it indexed and ranked then removing it another but keeping the url active and searchable via an alternative method. Does this reduce rank/ result in it being removed completely from the index?

Other examples other than ajax might include tag cloud navigation for example. 1 week the tag cloud could provide a link to a product, the next week the link is missing due to the effect of users on the tag cloud.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by clyro98

Thanks for your help. I am also interested in the second part of my question though with regard to providing a link to a product one month, getting it indexed and ranked then removing it another but keeping the url active and searchable via an alternative method. Does this reduce rank/ result in it being removed completely from the index?

Well if the link you will remove from the index is a quality link, that can maybe cause a very minor rank problem or maybe not at all. I would not worry about that at all, as I assume that you are going to try to get backlinks to your site for other sites anyway. No worth to discuss this any further.

Originally Posted by clyro98

Other examples other than ajax might include tag cloud navigation for example. 1 week the tag cloud could provide a link to a product, the next week the link is missing due to the effect of users on the tag cloud.

Will the content of the missing links still be accessible from somewhere? If not, I would say that a static HTML sitemap page could be a great alternative. And obviously you should try to get backlinks to those pages. And I am sure you can manage to have a static link on every page to that site map. Or?

[clyro98]

Well the idea was that the cloud would be used for navigation so no. However, the pages will always exist as static urls. Then the ajax browser/site search can unearth these pages. But a spider wouldnt. The only place to find the page would be in the XML site map that we submit to google/MSN.

Sounds like I need an HTML site map then. Yes, we could definitely add it to the footer for example. The alternative is a hard coded product category list i guess.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by clyro98

Well the idea was that the cloud would be used for navigation so no. However, the pages will always exist as static urls. Then the ajax browser/site search can unearth these pages. But a spider wouldnt. The only place to find the page would be in the XML site map that we submit to google/MSN.

Sounds like I need an HTML site map then. Yes, we could definitely add it to the footer for example. The alternative is a hard coded product category list i guess.

You got it buddy.

And by the way I thought of introducing you a book I just ordered myself, which I am very sure it would be interesting for you too: O'Reilly Media -- Bookstore: Programming Collective Intelligence

[kgun]

Note there are alternative AJAX technologies based on iFrames (hidden frames of zero height and width) and the XMLHttpRequest object respectively. The first is more SE friendly then the last.

AJAX is an approach that allows your web application to replace content in the users browser dynamically. You exchange data asyncrhonously with the server and get rid of page reload. The problem is to keep the history of this content indexed. How shall that be done?

The iFrames technology is better at keeping that history, but the XMLHttpRequest object technology is the latest and may be the future of web applications.

Read more ...

Read more about progressive enhancement and graceful degradation in my third post.

[seoqueen]

Can any one point me to a site that is already using ajax in whole or in parts of the website?

Thanks,

seoqueen

[kgun]

Some of the best known are

Google suggest, maps and Gmail.

[scotthai]

SEOQUEEN,
Some really amazing AJAX work is done at coke rewards mycokerewards.com, and second to non is the beautiful ajax work done in the netflix site netflix

As for tutorials and great information on ajax, you can go to ajax forumsthis is similar to webpronews only it is all discussions about developing websites with AJAX and may I suggest a book or two to get you going, one on AJAX, and one on JavaScript if you don't already know the language.

Clyro98,
As for your question, all AJAX pages exist as static pages, or information that is brought into a webpage via the XMLHttpRequest object, therefore, using Google SiteMaps, you can show this information to Google, hope for a boost inPR, but in the end, AJAX remains to be an invisible resource, may I suggest using DHTML and CSS to do a lot of the AJAX style of displaying and not displaying information (CSS display:none) and then use Javascript to change the style, or if you need to use AJAX make sure your content is quality, you've remained optimized for the keywords you want and have clustered them closely together, and if the AJAX remains blind to the Search Engine spiders, at least your site isn't going to suffer.

That would be my tip to you.

website design and development san jose

[clyro98]

Some great information there guys. Many thanks. Il get started and maybe reopen this thread later if I get into trouble.

[cass-hacks]

There are two primary uses of AJAX, user interaction/functions and site navigation.

Where AJAX is used entirely within a page to provide user functions, such as setting various page viewing options, font size, style selection etc. or entering a comment in a blog/forum or editing an image e.g. Flikr, there are really no SEO concerns. At the same time though, from a usability point of view, providing the same functionality through normal HTTP request processing, i.e. page loads, is beneficial.

Where AJAX is used for site navigation, you can get about 99% of the way to being search engine friendly.
1. Build the site as if there was no AJAX but, using a server side scripting language.
2. Decide what part of the pages always remains the same and what part is to be loaded by AJAX.
3. Set up the navigation so that if Javascript is enabled, the "page" is loaded via AJAX using POST for the request, normal page requests being GET.
4. Set up the server side script to detect if replying to a GET or a POST and if a GET, serve the entire page, if a POST, serve only the AJAX portion. Instead of using GET and POST, you can also assume normal request except in the case that it is an AJAX request in which case you can add either a GET or a POST parameter to signal an AJAX request and then test for its presence at the server.
5. If an AJAX request, add a "permalink" to the page so that anyone wanting to link to the page can actually get there.
6. Do whatever you feel necessary to deal with the forward/back button and bookmark issues.

Implemented this way, the only negative aspect from an SEO point of view is making sure that anyone linking to a given page served via AJAX uses the permalink provided.

Other than that, search engines see normal static pages while users not only can navigate fully using AJAX but also can arrive at any linked to page as expected and once arriving at the desired page, AJAX navigation takes over seamlessly.

[Webnauts]

Here is some cool information I was just reading: Search Engine Optimisation-friendly Design in a Web 2.0 World