SPA SEO: Is Your Single Page Application Killing SEO?

Utilizing SPAs ensures easier deployment and can render a positive user experience—both of which are good for SEO. However, there are inherent SEO issues that can come up within the SPA implementation process and functionality. Crawling can often be hindered since the inter-relatedness of pages to one another often can’t be fully understood when leveraged solely through SPA. This is because all the HTML elements which designate those connections aren’t loaded concurrently. This in turn impacts indexation as well as page quality, which work against SEO.
The goal then is to ensure that Google is able to crawl SPAs appropriately and efficiently. This can be achieved by leveraging XML sitemaps where appropriate to give Google as much crawling/indexation guidance as possible. In addition, utilizing actual HTML links on the page with content-relevant anchor text can support Google in understanding the inter-relatedness of pages by giving the algorithm direct, concurrent pathways to crawl and explore.

The issues

In our experience we’ve noted the following hardships/issues around implementing SEO for SPAs.

1. SPA implementation can impede Google from crawling pages, which negatively impacts indexation as well as the algorithm’s ability to understand how pages within a site are contextually related to one-another.
2. Even if a page is indexed, it may not be indexed as expected, which offers Google less information to rate the page’s quality and status within a site’s internal linking structure.
3. SPA implementation can make potential bug investigations difficult to diagnose and source.
4. Errors that can occur during the SPA implementation process can also prevent search engines from accessing valuable information required to determine a page’s SEO equity in relation to a user’s search query.

The solutions

The solution to these issues is to ensure that Google is able to crawl potentially impacted pages as well as understand how internal content is related to each other.

Ensure crawlability

1. Utilize XML sitemaps for as much content as possible. [High Priority]
2. Test html links below priority content on targeted pages. [Normal Priority]
3. Ensure the middle funnel aggregate pages utilize pagination markup wherever/whenever appropriate. [Normal Priority]

Improving quality of rendered aggregate pages

For aggregate query-based search pages please ensure that the first 10 rendered items are as relevant as possible to the designed targeted keyword.

The reality is that every situation is different and when you’re trying to factor in SEO concerns within your SPA implementation, finding that right balanced is very nuanced. RankScience has experienced SEO Managers with the skills to help you navigate SEO for SPAs. Request a Free SEO Consultation today.