Google Says It's Normal For Cached JavaScript Pages To Appear Empty - Search Engine Journal

It’s normal for JavaScript-based webpages to appear empty in Google’s cached view, says Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller.

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JavaScript-based webpages may appear blank or incomplete in Google’s cache, which is normal and not indicative of any problems.

This is stated by Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller in the latest installment of the Ask Googlebot video series on YouTube.

A question is submitted by an individual asking why their JavaScript pages aren’t showing in Google’s cached view.

The question reads:

“The cached version of React pages shows a blank page. What parameters should be considered while coding the React pages with SSR to make them Googlebot friendly?”

A cached page is a snapshot of what the URL looked like the last time it was crawled by Googlebot.

When a cached page looks like it’s empty, or is missing content, it’s natural to think Googlebot ran into a problem when crawling it. But that’s not always the case.

As Mueller explains, Google’s cache only captures the HTML elements on a page.

It’s not that Google isn’t capable of caching JavaScript, it’s more that Google is held back by browser restrictions.

Google’s Cache Displays HTML Only

Caching JavaScript-based webpages is challenging, Mueller says.

Not from a technical standpoint, but rather from security standpoint.

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