Can a React.js app rank on Google without moving to Next.js

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21

Nobody’s mentioned React server components yet. You don’t need Next.js to implement these.

22

Kemper said:
Nobody’s mentioned React server components yet. You don’t need Next.js to implement these.

Wow, that’s great, thanks! I really need to learn more about this.

23

If this is a real issue, what about making a static version of just your landing pages?

I assume most of your app needs a login or is not relevant for SEO, right? Why stress about indexing everything?

24

@Reagan
Yeah, we definitely need authentication. I’m worried about it broadly.

25

I’ve created a React app at www.revix.ai, and honestly, I think Google indexes it fine. I suggest making a sitemap and requesting indexing with the search console; it speeds things up! Also, love the design!

26

@Abi
So, you’re saying I shouldn’t worry too much? But I see different comments in other posts that confuse me even more. Is there an easy way to move to another setup without rewriting everything?

27

Hadley said:
@Abi
So, you’re saying I shouldn’t worry too much? But I see different comments in other posts that confuse me even more. Is there an easy way to move to another setup without rewriting everything?

Sorry if that was unclear. It does make a difference, especially in how quickly things load, but you can still optimize your SEO using React by focusing on site links, sitemaps, keywords, and so on.

28

@Abi
What terms is your site ranking for?

29

I’ll add my thoughts, despite all that’s said:

  • Your Lighthouse score is pretty low for Desktop. It doesn’t seem too serious, but getting a good score for Mobile is key for ranking. Work on your Largest-Content-Paint and Cumulative-Layout-Shift; those can usually be fixed easily, alongside accessibility.
  • Proper metadata tagging and keywords will help improve your relevance. I don’t believe Google gives any metric for this, but you can usually reach good relevance with solid meta tags. This may be a challenge since your site is client-side rendered, where your meta tags often stay the same as what’s in your index.html file. I’d recommend trying to move to Next.js or another SSR framework, but if you don’t want to go that way, you could:
    • Pre-render some pages
    • Use middleware to rewrite tags in your
    • Serve a custom document based on the user agent to give indexers the content they need.

I’ve had a client-side React app indexed without issues back in 2018. However, that isn’t always the case for other search engines with limited crawlers.

In summary, one of the most significant factors is authority. Having multiple sites link back to your domain is great for SEO.

30

What you’re looking for is server-side rendering, which Next.js can provide.

Other frameworks like Remix and Vite let you serve React through Node.js on the server. After that, you can add SEO meta tags yourself. It will require far less commitment than Next.js.

I’ve worked on a few projects transitioning Create React Apps to Vite/Remix with SSR for SEO. Just ask if you need help with it.