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Just wondering whether dynamically built HTML layout is fine from SEO perspectives? So let's assume e-commerce engine and its most popular page - products catalog. So 90% of the page is built using AJAX and MVVM library knockoutjs which builds HTML on the fly on the client side. So how search bots would parse such content? Is it fine indexed and would be such effective as server-side built HTML pages from the SEO perspectives?

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    how search bots would parse such content? -- The same way they parse an ordinary HTML page... They parse the rendered page. – Robert Harvey Apr 12 '12 at 19:30
  • @Ryathal : thanks for fixing grammar in the title, I still need working hard on my English grammar – sll Apr 12 '12 at 19:45
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    @RobertHarvey: interesting I though that they using source of a page which I see when opening a page source in a browser – sll Apr 12 '12 at 19:46
  • @sll That's right. Google has taken extra measures to capture some AJAX content if the developers take the right steps, as Robet posted in his answer, but in general the HTML seen from the "View Source" option in the browser is all that search engines will see. – Izkata Apr 13 '12 at 3:23
  • @Izkata: so generally saying dynamically built sites less optimal from SEO perspective? – sll Apr 13 '12 at 20:29
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Here are some resources for you to peruse. In short:

  1. If you have dynamic generation schemes embedded in your javascript (javascript menus for example), provide a static sitemap to the embedded content.

  2. Google can crawl Ajax links, if you take certain steps.

https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/getting-started
http://www.webbizideas.com/images/SEO-Friendly-Design-Guidelines.pdf

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  • Great, thanks! Especially I like documents you are referenced, special thanks for both links! – sll Apr 12 '12 at 20:23
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    Just Read Google crawler documentation, Looks like situation with dynamic content much compex rather than standard way generated pages, so I could assume that other search crawlers could be less smart than google crawler and ignore such dynamic content at all? – sll Apr 12 '12 at 20:39
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the safest bet is to have the content you want spidered as HTML (not brought through ajax). Even if Google does something, that doesn't mean other spiders do. If uncertain, you can use Google webmaster tools to see how Google sees your page ( https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home ) under diagnostics/fetch as googlebot

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It's rarely impossible or even all that difficult to implement a progressive enhancement approach that delivers static content when JavaScript is turned off. This isn't just an accessibility win. It's also mighty handy as a fallback for mobile browsers whose JS interpreters simply aren't worth attempting to normalize for (*cough*blackberry*/cough*). I'd rather adopt PE where possible and then mess with how spiders handle JS delivered content in the minority of scenarios where it's actually messy to implement PE. This of course, assumes you've got your separation of client-side concerns down in the first place. If you don't, do it right next time. You won't regret it.

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