A simple Ajax + SEO solution?

Question

on my site ive got a search box in center with google, when you search for something it displays all threads that matched the search criteria.

so these threads are all ajaxad in, but when you click on a thread it will go to the thread content with usual href link and the page will refresh.

now i have to let google find these threadlinks that link to every thread in the usual way, so if i put a 'show all threads'-link in my first page on the upper right corner that shows every thread in my site, does it solve the SEO part?

google is able to index them all, but the users will just use the ajax search box?

i've read that "as long as google can find all your contents from the first page (index.php) its fine". so this will be a good solution?

Answer 1

This will work - up to a point - and you'd be better off putting the links on a different page. You can trust that your users will go with the path of least resistance. If your search works better than your listing, you'll be fine there.

Regarding Google, what you described sounds a lot like a sitemap. That'll work OK, but consider breaking it up into multiple pages if you exceed around 150 links (that's about the time the searchbot gives up). The page should also be something else than index.php, and then just provide a link to it on the home page. A lot of news sites categorize by day or week, but you could also use alphabetical or other. Use whatever system works best for your site.

Answer 2

Turn of javscript on your site. Can you navigate to the threads in some fashion? If so, you can assume Google can as well.

I ahve to assume that your site isn't solely dependant on search to find threads. There should be some sort of traditional category-based way to get to the forums. If so, that should be all Google needs.

Worse case? Yes, a single link to some sort of index of all posts should work as well.

Answer 3

One of the downsides of AJAX is that it breaks a fundamental aspect of the net: that anyone visiting a given URL will get the same page view. This means bookmarking doesn't work right (or at all) for you and link sharing doesn't work right. It also means that bots (even very smart bots) may miss whole sections of your site.

One way to approach this is to make sure that all of your content is reachable via non-AJAX means. Graceful degradation is an important design concept, but it can be difficult to implement after the fact. My rule is to make the site work correctly without any JS magic, and then make it snazzier if JS is enabled. This is also good from an accessibility point of view since many people with handicaps can't benefit from (or are actually further disadvantaged by) AJAX and other JS wizardry.

Answer 4

I use jQuery and this site was very helpful: restoring-conventional-page-navigation-to-your-javascript-application-with-jquery-history-plugin