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React SEO: Tips for building SEO optimized web applications

Learn how to develop a website with React SEO so that it ranks on search engines. Read the challenges and best practices for developing SEO-friendly websites.

By BacancyPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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In terms of search engine optimization, React sites face major challenges. One of the main reasons is that most React developers pay more attention to client-side supplies. At the same time, Google focuses on server-side rendering, which poses a major difficulty to ReactJS and search engine optimization. This article lists the issues that prevent React from being SEO friendly.

How does search engine optimization work?

Of all the searches made on the Internet, Google received approximately 90% of search engine optimization. Before we dive into how SEO operates, let’s take a look at Google’s crawling and indexing method.

Common SEO problems

The following are some SEO problems that software designers and software developers can solve and fix.

1. Passing empty content for the first time

React apps are known to rely on Java, so there are problems with search engines due to the application packaging model used by React. HTML does not initially contain any important content, so the robot or user must run JavaScript to display the page's original content. This method means that Googlebot will crawl a blank page on the first pass.

2. Page Metadata

Meta tags are great because they allow Google and social networking sites to present accurate thumbnails, names, and information for a given page. However, these websites rely on gathered website tags to obtain this data. Run JavaScript on the landing page. React handles everything, even meta tags.

3. Sitemap

A sitemap is a file that contains all the information about videos, pages, and other branches of the website, as well as the relationships between them. As a smart search engine, Google will read this data to crawl your website easily. You have a built-in system for generating a sitemap. If you use Router to handle your routes, you should discover more tools for creating sitemaps. However, this may need some energy from you.

4. User Interaction and Loading Time

Regardless of the task, acquiring, running, and parsing Java is time-consuming. In addition, Java may even need to call the system to receive content, and users must wait for a while before they can see the requested information. In terms of ranking standards, Google has developed many important network elements related to the user's knowledge. Long load times will affect user knowledge scores and will notify Google of sites with below rankings.

React SEO Best Practices

1. Router Use in React

You should know React SPA as follows. However, if you define some SEO components and rules accordingly on their page, you can better use the SPA model. You require to open the page as a separate URL without a hashtag (#).

According to Google, it cannot understand the URL of a hash link, so it cannot index any URL created with React.

So we created URLs that open on different pages to use Router in the URL. Below is an example:

2. URL Case

If the URL contains lowercase or uppercase letters, Google treats some pages as separate pages.

example:

/ vendi

/ Vendi

These two URLs are treated as two separate pages by Google. To evade such duplicate pages, please write all URLs in lowercase.

3. Use Href in the link

Make sure your link contains an href. Unfortunately, Googlebot cannot read the link presented by onclick. Therefore, it’s important to use Hrefs to identify links so that Googlebot can more easily find and access other related pages.

To conclude these were some of the best React SEO tips although React SEO is very common nowadays, it is accompanied by several key terms: React Helmet and Reactsnap. However, please note that Google is more agile and more reliable at computing and crawling HTML sites than Java when using Java.

However, this does not imply that Google cannot crawl sites that use JavaScript. The only thing you need to notice is to be calm and fully aware of the possible problems you face.

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About the Creator

Bacancy

A Leader in Agile and Lean Software Development

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  • TheBestIndexer11 months ago

    This article provides valuable insights into the challenges faced by React sites in terms of search engine optimization (SEO). As a React developer, I understand the importance of addressing these challenges to ensure that websites built with React rank well on search engines. The article highlights several common SEO problems faced by React developers, such as passing empty content for the first time and page metadata issues. It also emphasizes the significance of having a sitemap for easy crawling and the impact of user interaction and loading time on rankings. The best practices shared in the article offer practical solutions to improve React SEO. Using Router in React to define SEO components and rules, ensuring consistent URL case (lowercase), and utilizing href in links are some effective strategies. It's important to note that while React SEO has its challenges, Google is proficient in crawling and indexing HTML sites compared to Java. Overall, this article serves as a helpful guide for developers seeking to optimize their React web applications for better search engine visibility. By implementing the suggested best practices, we can enhance the SEO performance of React sites and improve their rankings on search engines.

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