SEOs beware: if you haven’t heard of Single Page Applications (SPA for short), or if you have been resistant to learning about these JavaScript methods for creating websites, the time for hiding your head in the sand is over.
Check out this tweet from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller:
The web has moved from plain HTML – as an SEO you can embrace that. Learn from JS devs & share SEO knowledge with them. JS's not going away.
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) August 8, 2017[1]
John Mueller is correct. It’s not going away.
A quick search on Google Trends for “Single Page Application” reveals the sharp rise in popularity and awareness of SPAs over time:
Some developers are positively enamored with using JavaScript frameworks and libraries to create websites, and SPA popularity has been steadily growing.
Take Angular (also known as AngularJS and Angular.js), for example.
Here’s a Google Trends search for the Angular JavaScript framework showing the past 5 years, and Trends even recognizes the application platform – you can see popularity has increased greatly over the last couple of years:
The React JavaScript library shows a similar up and to the right trend:
In my role as a professional SEO, I can’t say that Single Page Applications are the rule and not the exception when it comes to how businesses choose to develop websites these days, but I am running across more and more SPAs, and so are my colleagues.
- Yes, it’s true that JavaScript was never intended for web page content delivery.
- Yes, it’s true that SPAs to date have not been great for SEO.