What is Vue.JS?

Building a website is one thing, but getting visitors is quite another.
Vue.JS is a progressive JavaScript framework that builds user interfaces.

It works by letting you build your website using reusable components, which encapsulate your data in JavaScript and connects it to an HTML template.

Similar to React, Vue works within a vrtual DOM. Whatever HTML you write in Vue is compiled in that DOM whenever the component is rendered.

Some of Vue’s Strengths

Fast-Growing

Vue was developed by a former Google employee who helped build Angular. Although it doesn’t have Angular or React’s widespread pervasiveness, Vue is one of the fastest-growing JavaScript frameworks. Companies that use Vue include Apple, Nintendo, and Trustpilot.

Easy to Learn

Vue is versatile, testable, and easy to maintain. It’s also easy to use and learn, and produces clean, readable code. It’s ideal for small teams or small projects. Unfortunately, it has some SEO drawbacks.

SSR or Prerendering?

Getting Crawled

There are two options for getting your Vue website properly crawled and indexed: server-side rendering (SSR) or use a prerendering plugin. Vue has the advantage over Angular and React when it comes to SSR support because it provides ample documentation telling you how to do this.

SSR Pros and Cons

SSR also comes with significant trade-offs. It’s much more complicated to set up, requiring more work and higher server maintenance costs.

SSR includes some performance enhancements like faster page loading and first contentful paint. However, some visible elements like buttons or widgets might not be interactive while the page is still loading, which can negatively impact the user experience.

Prerendering Benefits

Prerendering your web pages with Prerender® is simpler and faster.

It provides an SEO solution for single page apps by working seamlessly with these smaller apps and websites that are typically designed with Vue, making it the ideal choice for your Vue website. The simple solution is usually the best one.

Vue SEO Challenges

Client-side rendering

Vue defaults to client-side rendering, just like Angular and React, to create single-page applications. SPAs aren’t great for SEO as they render pages dynamically with JavaScript.

Difficulty indexing

Search engine web crawlers need to be able to execute your JavaScript to fully crawl and index your website. Google claims that it’s able to execute JavaScript, but this hasn’t been proven.

Missing traffic

Other search engines such as Bing, Yandex, DuckDuckGo cannot index JavaScript-based websites. That means you could be missing out on a lot of search traffic.

Frequently-Asked Questions

Why Is Vue’s Client-Side Rendering Default Bad for SEO?

Like other JavaScript frameworks, all sites built with Vue are set, by default, to client-side rendering (CSR). Unfortunately, this means that Googlebot sees only a blank page when it crawls, so there isn’t any content to index. In order to make your page more SEO-friendly, you’ll need to implement either server-side rendering (SSR), which can be complicated to implement and costly to maintain, or a dynamic rendering solution like Prerender®.

Is Dynamic Rendering Better Than Server-Side Rendering?

Dynamic rendering is associated with many positive outcomes that can help your site’s usability, SEO and overall visibility.

Makes Vue.JS SEO-Friendly: enjoy the performance and UX benefits of JavaScript SPAs while also making your site’s pages easily crawlable
Faster Indexation & Search Rankings: get more of your site’s pages indexed in a shorter amount of time so they can vie for valuable real estate on Google
Increased Organic Traffic: the sooner your content achieves rankings, the sooner you can start driving organic traffic – and ROI! – to your site

Will Google Think I’m Cloaking?

No. While dynamic rendering allows you to serve content to different audiences in different ways, the process still delivers the same content to everyone. Dynamic rendering is the approach Google recommends for turning dynamic content into static content, and we’re proud that Prerender® is a solution that Google mentions specifically in its documentation.

Is Prerender® Easy to Install?

Yes! Not only is Prerender® a reliable solution that can help cut costs and save countless team hours, it’s also incredibly simple to install. The process is completed in four main steps that are covered in detail here:

Identify your techstack and preferred installation method
Install the middleware code block appropriate for your tech stack
Test
Configure and customize