Search Engine Optimization and AJAX:
Dangerous Liaisons?

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AJAX is short for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and defines the ability of a web page to dynamically load specific sections of that page rather than reloading the entire page. This new alluring technology is mostly used to increase the user friendliness and speed of a web site. But in this case, what is good for visitors represents a significant bottleneck for the search engines.

To the search engines, AJAX carries many of the similar issues seen in online forms: A search engine simply cannot handle content that requires input capabilities for it to appear on screen. A spider doesn't have the intelligence to fill out an online form. With AJAX the situation is analogous: The user input action that causes the content to change cannot be performed by the spider. Hence, the additional content remains invisible and doesn't get indexed.

Even if the spider were capable of e.g. inputting text it would fail because most spiders cannot run JavaScript code. Since there are complex computations involved in making AJAX content visible, it is unlikely that the search engines will be able to handle this roadblock effectively in the near future.

Furthermore, AJAX represents a much more fundamental hurdle: If a specific page component changes after loading the page, the URL doesn't change; precisely because the new page itself hasn't completely refreshed. The page content is different but the URL remains the same. Thus there are pages for which there exists no URL - a problem that users of frames battle with as well.

All in all, these are clear reasons to think ahead when jumping the gun and implementing AJAX technology: Additional steps must be taken to enable search engines to index this invisible content. One option is to create a static version of the AJAX-enabled web site. But even here, there can be obstacles: Visitors who are brought to the static pages from a search engine query now must somehow be redirected to the dynamic area of the site to take full advantage of the AJAX functionality.

With the arrival of AJAX, web technology again has taken center stage with new and exciting features. But web designers and e-commerce IT staff must be weary of the downfalls of this technology and ensure that web site content remains visible to the search engines.

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