SEO in AEM React SPA

[gururajkoni69]

Is it feasible to utilize an AEM React SPA without Server-Side Rendering (SSR) while still maintaining strong SEO performance?

[EstebanBustamante · Accepted solution]

Technically No, when using a client-side rendered SPA without SSR, search engines might not be able to fully understand and index your content because the initial HTML delivered to the browser might lack meaningful content. However, there are strategies you can employ to improve the poor SEO generated by default in any SPA.

1. Prerendering: While not full SSR, you can implement a prerendering process that generates static HTML versions of your pages at build time. These prerendered pages can then be served to search engines and other clients that do not execute JavaScript. This approach can improve SEO by providing search engines with content to index. Tools like "prerender-spa-plugin" for Webpack can help with this or NextJS.

2. Meta Tags and Dynamic Rendering: Use meta tags such as "prerender-status-code" or "fragment" to provide search engines with hints about how to interpret your content. Implement dynamic rendering, where you serve fully-rendered HTML to bots/crawlers while still delivering the SPA to regular users. Google's Dynamic Rendering guidelines can provide further insights.

3. Sitemap and Crawling: Create a sitemap.xml file that lists all the URLs of your SPA. Submit this sitemap to search engines to facilitate crawling and indexing.

4. Structured Data: Implement structured data (Schema.org) markup on your pages to help search engines understand the context and content of your pages.

5. Progressive Enhancement: Design your SPA with progressive enhancement in mind. Ensure that essential content is available and rendered without JavaScript so that search engines can access and index it.

6. Canonical URLs: Use canonical URLs to indicate the preferred version of a page, whether it's a fully-rendered version or the SPA version.

7. Use of Fragment Identifiers (#): Some search engines, like Google, can index content within fragment identifiers. You can leverage this by structuring your SPA to use fragment identifiers to represent different sections of your content.

8. Monitor and Adjust: Regularly monitor your SEO performance, crawlability, and indexing status using tools like Google Search Console. Adjust your strategies based on insights and feedback.

Again, while these techniques can help improve SEO for a client-side rendered SPA, they might not provide the same level of SEO performance as full Server-Side Rendering.