Quick answer for me - no, never expected it to be indexed so there was never any wondering The trade off that Eric mentions was always made pretty clear by the search engines and in my case, we decided to render pages we wanted indexed outside of GWT and we have a parallel application structure to render these pages with a minimum of javascript. We still have some problems: 1. a slide show of multiple pictures is not so easy to deal with 2. we use a couple of 3rd party embedded components, that we like, but we'll have to replace at some point because the content in them doesn't get indexed
I think your second question makes a presumption that a GWT rendered webpage has only a single URL. This is not necessarily the case. There are some GWT apps out there that have large URL spaces based on content that they render. They have an indexing problem if they cannot provide the same content sans GWT execution. On Jan 25, 7:12 am, Peter Ondruška <peter.ondru...@gmail.com> wrote: > Following discussion on indexing AJAX applications I have to ask if > those who wonder why their GWT applications cannot be indexed if you > expect search engines to index Java applets or Flash out there on the > web, or compressed files and executable files? And if somehow GWT > application get indexed what links do you expect to be shown insearch > results--it can only be yourapp#variables. Is it not enough to have > the application entry html indexed and available in results? Peter > > 2009/1/25, Eric Ayers <zun...@google.com>: > > > Here are some official answers on the subject: > > Notes on Ajax: > >http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=8... > > > Don't be evil, Guidelines for Webmasters: > >http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 > > > On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 5:04 AM, jos <jot...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> Eric > > >> Just to make sure I understood your last point, we should be looking > >> for a search bot indicator > >> like a URL parameter or something, and if we see it we should render > >> our page as statically and > >> flat as possible? > > >> Thanks, > >> jos > > >> On Jan 24, 5:01 am, Eric Ayers <zun...@google.com> wrote: > >> > Hi Bryan, > >> > I understand your frustration. Unfortunately, due to the extremely > >> > competitive nature of web search, we here at Google can't say a lot > >> > about > >> > the Google bot or the roadmap for future improvements. Indexing > >> JavaScript > >> > apps is a general problem not particular to GWT. Obviously, this is one > >> of > >> > those problems everyone in the web apps & search community needs to keep > >> > coming back to in order to find better ways to solve it. > > >> > Just to give you an idea of the complexity involved, the first "page" of > >> > JavaScript for GWT basically runs a big switch statement that loads a > >> > different script depending on which browser is running (which browser > >> should > >> > the googlebot run. Which bugs should it emulate?). It doesn't actually > >> > create the DOM until after the body of the document is finished loading > >> > (when does it know to start looking at the DOM?). Your app might be > >> > perfectly happy for the bot to index just the front page, but that is > >> still > >> > going to leave a huge swath of unhappy app developers. Another page > >> might > >> > present something on the first page that is not very indicative of the > >> > content, like: "this browser is not supported" or "Login or create an > >> > account" or "choose your region" using images before continuing. A page > >> > might have tabs or a menu with content that doesn't actually get > >> > attached > >> to > >> > the DOM until after the tabs are clicked and has a message ("click on > >> > the > >> > menu to ..."). > > >> > Here's some spin for you: I think the message from the search side of > >> > search engines isn't "Don't use JavaScript". Instead, the message is to > >> > provide a page of HTML that faithfully describes your app and/or its > >> content > >> > when the search engine crawls your page. I know its more work, but > >> think > >> > about how that might actually be an opportunity for Web 2.0 authors. > > >> > -Eric. > > >> > On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 2:59 AM, bryanb <webbt...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> > > That's the point of my query/question, Why can't the Google bot > >> > > understand Javascript ? As I said originally, using Firebug I can see > >> > > what the Javascript has rendered to the DOM, so there's no good reason > >> > > the Google bot can;t do the same. Granted, it cannot follow links or > >> > > any of the possibly unlimited execution paths in the Javascript, but > >> > > it should be able to render the initial state of the page, and > >> > > consequently index stuff on that page. Likewise if there is a site map > >> > > with history tags, it should be able to render the initial state of > >> > > each of those pages and index accordingly. The initial state is really > >> > > all you want indexed anyway - if I do a Google search for "fubar", I > >> > > reasonably expect the URLs returned to point to a page with "fubar" > >> > > on it somewhere i.e. for a GWT app the initial state of that page. > > >> > > It just seems a bit strange that one part of Google has created a tool > >> > > for making really usable web sites, but the search side of Google says > >> > > "don''t use Javascript" if you want to be indexed. > > >> > -- > >> > Eric Z. Ayers - GWT Team - Atlanta, GA USAhttp:// > >> code.google.com/webtoolkit/ > > > -- > > Eric Z. Ayers - GWT Team - Atlanta, GA USA > >http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group. 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