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Software and web app development industry have taken the tech world by a storm. With a growing global IT industry, a lot of entrepreneurs, major organizations, as well as government entities, are jumping on the software development bandwagon, building websites, web apps, mobile apps, etc. within the different niche.
For companies looking to join the list, you must be aware of the basic technical aspects of software and web development.
Technically speaking, there are three main aspects of any web app or software. These are:
1.The Front-end
The aspect of the app of software that a user directly interacts with.
2.The Back-end
This is the part where the logic for these user interactions is defined. Back-end codes and functionalities do not interact directly with users.
3. Middleware
Middleware is the database management system of any application or software. It is the platform where the back-end communicates with the front-end aspect of the project.
Each aspect of the software, website or the web app has different programming languages, frameworks and tools that can be used to create the entire product.
In this article, we shall be discussing a particular framework for front-end development that has been gaining recent popularity i.e. the Vue.js framework.
Insight into Vue.js
Vue.js framework is one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks used for front-end development.
JavaScript is a popular programming language used to create interactive and dynamic content for the front-end. Vue.js, in particular, is preferred by a lot of companies to create interactive websites and other platforms.
One of the most popular implementations of this framework is in building attractive and interactive websites. Companies are recently getting their web developers to build beautiful animations and interactive features for their website using the Vue.js framework.
Website Development Essentials
When it comes to developing websites using the Vue.js framework, companies either build their own team equipped with the framework or outsource the development process to either a developer or a Vue.js development company.
Whatever the case may be, there are certain things that a Vue.js development company or the developers must keep in mind while building the website.
One of the most important aspects of the process is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is extremely necessary for any website that is looking to build a valid online presence and gain optimum traffic on their site.
According to an article in SEO Tribunal, 93% of all online experiences begin through a search engine.
Search engines are platforms that provide consolidated results i.e. related web pages, blogs and other similar content based on a query. Google is one of the most popular search engines being used by users to gain the necessary information. According to the SEO Tribunal report, almost 67k searches are performed on Google every second.
Hence, it is indeed really necessary for companies to ensure that their websites are optimized for Google and other search engines.
SEO Basics- Indexing your Website
There are a lot of factors to be considered for optimizing your website, no matter the search engine. So, how exactly does SEO work?
The first step to SEO is getting your website and all the related webpages being indexed by the desired search engine. As mentioned before, Google is the most popular search engines out there. Hence, developers create their website in a way that their pages are indexed by and overall ranked high on Google.
Google’s bots first off index these pages and then analyse them based on content, relevance, reliability, security, etc. Google also used the XML Sitemap to analyse webpages that may not be directly linked or visible on the site.
How high the page will rank is based on this factor.
There are a lot of factors such as the age of your domain, no. of backlinks i.e. no of external websites linking to your website, keywords used within the content, etc. that play a role in SEO.
But, before delving into all of that, we must focus on indexing.
How Does Google Index A Webpage?
Indexing is an important factor for a Vue.js development company or a developer to consider as initially, Google’s bots were used to index webpage content written only in HTML. Before 2009, content written in HTML was the prime content that was indexed by Google’s bots to analyse for ranking.
It was even possible that a website might even be penalized for its JavaScript content. This was in the case where websites used a basic HTML structure for Google to index and create a duplicated version using JavaScript for user-interaction.
Google considered this a breach of security. It was a norm back in the day that important content for websites was not to be created or included in JavaScript.
Post Google’s updates in 2015, its bots were able to recognize and index content created using JavaScript just like any other modern browser. This was initially an update used for webpages developed using AJAX.
How Does Google Index JavaScript Content?
Initially, the process to be followed for having a web page’s JavaScript content indexed was to render the Vue.js into a basic JavaScript structure which was then in turn rendered into HTML which could be read by Google’s bots.
A lot of this rendering was either done from the server-side rather than the client site. Apart from this, a certain amount of content was rendered by an external web server and then fetched by Google.
The problem with using an external server for rendering is that there might often be delays in fetching the content externally during the indexing process. This results in the content being missed out on by Google’s bots and the JavaScript not being indexed at all.
With the introduction of Node.js and Google’s bot updates however, it is much simpler now to get the JavaScript and CSS files indexed as is by Google’s bots.
There are a lot of tools available now that helps developers in getting their webpages rendered as is even if coded using the Vue.js frameworks.
Even when it comes to the competitive ranking of these pages, the content coded using the Vue.js framework is now considered by the Google bots for ranking.
However, as mentioned above, many times, the content that is to be fetched using external web-servers may get delayed. This, in turn, will lead to the content not being indexed at all by Google. Apart from this, Google also often does not index animated text created using the Vue.js framework.
That is why it is best advisable to include all primary information such as meta tags, descriptions, alt texts, etc. that contain the focus keywords in the HTML. It is advisable to pre-render the JavaScript content fetched from external sources.
Pre-rendering can be avoided if your page isn’t targeting other search engines such as Bing. Bing is not compatible in terms of indexing Vue.js content. Therefore, you must pre-render your content server-side in case of other search engines.
Apart from this, you need not worry about your content being indexed by Google. But, you must test and pre-check our entire website, making sure that there are no JavaScript errors. JavaScript errors will most definitely hinder the indexing of your web app or webpage. Hence, you must check your entire framework before you index your pages.
Final Thoughts:
In conclusion, a Vue.js development company that you hire or your in-house team that you assign your development project to must thoroughly research the implications of web development through this framework on the overall SEO of your website or the app.
There are a lot of alternatives to the framework as well as certain workarounds that can help optimize your existing pages coded using Vue.js. It is a matter of research and due process to be followed in development and coding for your website to be indexed and ranked on your desired keywords.