Getting AJAX Loaded content indexed by Google - ajax

Ok, first question on stackoverflow!
I'm in a bit of a dilemma, I've recently created an ecommerce site and set it up to load everything very nicely with AJAX for speed, UX & UI. However it appears that the search engines (Google) is not indexing the content. Doing a bit of research the popular answer/fix that comes back is to implement Googles guide here: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/
To cut a long story short I don't really want to be using 'hash bangs' across the site, the URL's I currently use are simple and clean and littering them with #! just doesn't look nice! Before I start to go down this route does is there any alternatives? I currently use history.pushState on the category pages but I need something primarily for the product detail page tat doesn't involve changing the URL.
This is the current setup for loading the product details:
$(document).ready(function(){
LoadContent();
});
function LoadContent() {
Services.Content.GetProduct(productid, OnSuccess, OnFailure);
}
function OnSuccess(result) {
$('#ContentLoading').css("display", "none");
$('#Content').hide();
$('#Content').html(result);
$('#Content').delay(200).fadeIn();
}

Related

Change content view of Laravel layout without page refresh

I've been searching for an hour on how to nagivate within my Laravel website without refreshing the website (page layout), but I couldn't find a proper solution: one that not just loads the HTML, but actually replaces the content view within the layout.
This is my current dashboard:
So when clicking on a menu item within the blue area, I want the red content area to change without page refresh. What would be a scalable solution for this? I'm trying to follow the DRY (Don't repeat yourself) principle as much as possible.
Oh, please don't mark this topic as a clone of other topics as I've seen most of them but without proper solution. Hope anyone can help me out.
Changing a view without page load means we need to use the ajax techology. Vuejs is a frontend frameework the allows us to acomplish that easily with its axios library
I believe you can get this done by using jQuery load function -
$(function () {
$("#menu_option_a").on("click", function () {
$("#dashboard").load("View1.html");
});
$("#menu_option_b").on("click", function () {
$("#dashboard").load("View2.html");
});
});

Vote for comments in posts function with Codeigniter and routing

I am trying to create posts with comments with CodeIgniter and I am trying to add voting for the comments with + and -.
But my problem is not actually this functionallity but more exactly creating the link and the method in controller/model for this.
I understand that there is some kind of link to methods.
If I have something like this:
public function like() {
echo 'Test Function';
}
and when I create link like this one sitename.com/posts/first-post/like theoritecally I will see blank page with "Test Function" text (and of course if I write proper routing rule but I cannor for now).
I can see a blank page with this working echo 'Test Function', but does this mean I have to load every methods and views for the entire page if I want to display the entire webpage with all the elements? I think that I mistake something very serious here but I don't know what.
The example with the "Create news" tutorial in ellislab.com didnt help me. They show something similar I think with /create/ section in the URL and create() methods.
If I have many links with functionallities do I have to add new routing rules for all of them? I really tried to search in Google and everywhere but I didnt find anything related.
Sorry for this lame question.
You need to use Ajax call and on callback you have to increase or decrease the count. For creating a link , once page is loading render the data and provided the default link like
for + http://<site.com>/<controller>/like?totalLike=<36>
for - http://<site.com>/<controller>/unlike?totalunLike=<3>
Once user will click + link then by using Ajax, call the controller method link/unlike and increase or decrease the count and repopulate the link again with fresh counter.
Hope it will resolve your problem.

Crawlable Ajax content. SEO-ing without hashbang. Is my way ok?

I'm going to build my application based on ajax, and my URLs are something like:
http://server.com/module/#function_name,param1,param2...etc
After referencing some discussions about google's suggestion: hashbang (#!), it's not hard for me to realize that it was not the best solution. There are several reasons:
The URL is pretty ugly, anyway.
It's terrible if someday Google(or some other search-engines) suggest a better solution other than hashbang. I must keep my ugly url with hashbang, or write some js-code to make link to my page still alive.
HTML5 pushState will be popular someday.
For all things above, I decide to make it my way: my navigation links will be like this:
<a href="http://server.com/module/for-crawler/function-name/param1/param2/...">
Some text </a>
And some jQuery code will make it capable to load ajax content instead of page-change like a normal link:
$(function(){
$('a').live('click',function(e){
var realURL = translateURL( $(this).attr('href') )
loadContent( realURL );
e.prevetnDefault();
return false;
})
})
/* -- the function translateURL will turn url like :
..... http://server.com/module/for-crawler/function-name/param1/param2/...
Into:
..... http://server.com/module/#function-name/param1/param2/...
That's the real url I think all ajaxers are used to dealing with
*/
When crawler reads my page, it will follow the url in "href" attribute, and I will provide it with static non-js version of my page just for google to read. After some days, my page is indexed & user will see my page on Google's results like this:
http://server.com/module/for-crawler/function-name/param1/param2/...
I'm going to user js again to redirect user to my normal ajax version, I mean, to the real URL :
http://server.com/module/#function-name/param1/param2/...
That's the best approach I can think about at this time. Please give me advices : should I do it that way, or can I make it better ? Thanks all guys !
Depending on your audience I would suggest to use HTML5 PushState anyway.
If the client is not supporting HTML5 PushState let him simply use the same version of your app as the crawlers do. In my opinion a page reload is not as bad as a hashed URL. Since users share URLs your hashed URL gets exposed to other users. This URL wouldn't work for, let's say Facebooks Link sharing previews or any other client that doesn't support JavaScript.
Instead I would only use the crawler-friendly app in combination with HTML5 PushState. With PushState you will always expose a single URL, independent of the JavaScript support of your client.
First, detect whether PushState is supported:
function supports_history_api() {
return !!(window.history && history.pushState);
}
Then your click-handler would look something like this:
$('a').live('click',function(e){
var url = $(this).attr('href');
e.preventDefault();
loadContent( url );
history.pushState({"url":url}, $(this).attr('title'), url);
return false;
})

Is there a way to AJAX load a page and change URL in URL bar without hashing?

This is probably going to get a resounding no, but I am wondering if it possible to have the URl change dynamically with using hashing, and without invoking a http request from the browser?
My client is keen on using AJAX for main navigation. This is fine, when the end user goes to the front page first, but when they want to use the deep linking, despite it working, it forces an extra load time as the page loads the front page, then invokes the AJAX from the hash.
UPDATE: Could it be possible, given that what I want to avoid is the page reload (the reason is that it looks bad) to stem the reload by catching the hash with PHP before the headers are sent, and redirecting before the page load. This way only one page loads, and the redirect is all but invisible to the user. Not sure how to do this, but seems like it is possible?
Yes, this is possible. I often do this to store state in the hash part of the URL. The result is that the page doesn't reload, but if the user does reload, they're taken to the right page.
Using this method, the URL will look like: "/index#page=home" or "/index#page=about"
You'll need to write a JavaScript function that handles navigation, and you'll need a containing div that gets rewritten with the contents fetched from AJAX.
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<div id="content"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
function link(page) {
location.hash = "page="+page;
loadPage(page);
}
// NOTE: This is using MooTools. Use the AJAX method in whatever
// JavaScript framework you're using.
function loadPage(page) {
new Request.HTML({
url: "/ajax/"+page+".html",
onSuccess: function(tree, elements, html) {
document.id('content').setProperty('html', html);
}
}).get();
}
</script>
Now, you'll also need to have something that checks the hash on page load to load the right content initially. Again, this is using MooTools, but use whatever onLoad method your JavaScript framework provides.
<script type="text/javascript">
document.addEvent('domready', function() {
parts = location.hash.split('=');
loadPage(parts[1]);
}
</script>
Ok, the problem is that opening an AJAX link of the form http://example.com/#xyz results in a full page being downloaded to the browser, and then the AJAX-altered content is changed once the page has loaded and checked the hash part of its URL. The user has a diconcerting experience.
You can hugely improve this by making a page that just contains the static elements - menus, etc. - and a loading GIF in the content area. This page checks its URL upon loading and dynamically fetches the content specified by the hash part. The page can have any URL you want; we'll use http://example.com/a. Links to this page (http://example.com/a#xyz) now provide a good user experience for users with scripting enabled.
However, new users won't come to the site by fetching http://example.com/a; they'll fetch http://example.com. This is fine - serve the full page, including the home page content and links that don't require scripting to work (e.g., http://example.com/xyz). A script run on loading this page should alter the href of AJAXable links to their AJAX form (http://example.com/a#xyz); thus the first link a user clicks on will result in a full page load but subsequent ones won't.
The only remaining problem is is a no-script user gets sent an AJAX link. You can add a noscript block to the AJAX page that contains a message explaining the problem and provides a link back to the homepage; you could include instructions on how to enable scripting or even how to modify the link by removing a# and pressing enter.
It's not a great answer, but you can offer a different link in the page itself; e.g., if the address bar shows /#xyz you include a link to /xyz somewhere in the page. You could also add a link or button that uses script to bookmark the page, which would again use the non-AJAX form of the link.

Pros and cons of AJAX-loaded content

It's pretty nice to sort a dataset by a number of filters and get the results shown instantly, right?
My solution to do this would be to POST the "filter" (read forms) parameters to a page called dataset.php, which returns the appropriate dataset in compiled HTML, that can be loaded straight into my page.
So, besides this being a total no-no for SEO and for people having deactivated Javascript, It appears as a quite good solution to easily build on in the future.
However, I have yet not the experience to consider it a good or bad overall solution. What should be our concerns with an AJAX-fetched dataset?
So, besides this being a total no-no for SEO and for people having deactivated Javascript, It appears as a quite good solution to easily build on in the future.
Not entirely true, there are solutions out there like jQuery Ajaxy which enable AJAX content with History tracking while remaining SEO and javascript disabled friendly. You can see this in action on my own site Balupton.com with evidence it's still SEO friendly here.
However, I have yet not the experience to consider it a good or bad overall solution. What should be our concerns with an AJAX-fetched dataset?
Having Ajax loaded content is great for the user experience it's fast quick and just nice to look at. If you don't have history tracking then it can be quite confusing especially if you are using ajax loaded content for things like pages, rather than just sidebar content - as then you break away from consistency users are experienced with. Another caveat is Google Analytics tracking for the Ajax pages. These shortcomings, those you've already mentioned as well as some others mentioned elsewhere are all quite difficult problems.
jQuery Ajaxy (as mentioned before) provides a nice high level solution for nearly all the problems, but can be a big learning curve if you haven't worked with Controller architecture yet but most people get it rather quickly.
For instance, to enable history trackable ajax content for changing a set of results using jQuery Ajaxy, you don't actually need any server side changes. You could do something like this at the bottom of your page: $('#results ul.pages li.page a').addClass('ajaxy ajaxy-resultset').ajaxify();
Then setup a Ajaxy controller like so to fetch just the content we want from the response:
'resultset': {
selector: '.ajaxy-resultset',
request: function(){
// Hide Content
$result.stop(true,true).fadeOut(400);
// Return true
return true;
},
response: function(){
// Prepare
var Ajaxy = $.Ajaxy; var data = this.State.Response.data; var state = this.state;
// Show Content
var Action = this;
var newResultContent = $(data.content).find('#result').html();
$result.html(newResultContent).fadeIn(400,function(){
Action.documentReady($result);
});
// Return true
return true;
}
}
And that's all there is too it, with most of the above being just copy and pasted code from the demonstration page. Of course this isn't ideal as we return the entire page in our Ajax responses, but this would have to happen anyway. You can always upgrade the script a bit more, and make it so on the server side you check for the XHR header, and if that is set (then we are an ajax request) so just render the results part rather than everything.
You already named the 2 big ones. Now all you need to do is make sure all the functionality works without javascript (reload the page with the requested dataset), and use AJAX to improve it (load the requested dataset without reloading the page).
This largely depends on the context. In some cases people today may expect the results to be delivered instantly without the page refreshing itself. It does also improve overall user-experience - again, this largely depends on the context.
However, it does also have its pitfalls. Would the user have a need to return to the previous pages after the ajax content was delivered? Since this may not be as simple as pressing the Back button in the browser.

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