On Google’s Webmaster Conference DACH 2019 in Zurich, Aleksej Dix explained when to use server side rendering (SSR) if you have a JavaScript based website.
What is server side rendering?
Server rendering generates the full HTML for a page on the server in response to navigation. This avoids additional round-trips for data fetching and templating on the client, since it’s handled before the browser gets a response.
Rendering on the server makes it possible to avoid sending lots of JavaScript to the client, which helps achieve a fast Time to Interactive (TTI). With server rendering you’re just sending text and links to the user’s browser.
With server rendering, users are unlikely to be left waiting for CPU-bound JavaScript to process before they can use your site.
When should you use server side rendering?
If you have a JavaScript based website, you should use server side rendering if the website is public, and if the rankings of the website on search engines are important. You do not need SSR if the website is not public.
When to SSR your JS based website? #wmczrh #gwconfdach pic.twitter.com/VioOeaKxZJ
— Aleyda Solis (@aleyda) December 11, 2019
In other words: if you want to get high rankings on Google, use server side rendering if you have a JavaScript based website.
Can search engines parse your web pages?
Use the website audit tool in SEOprofiler to check if search engines can parse the content of your pages:
