Google’s John Mueller Predicts Much More JavaScript in SEO in the Coming Years

Google’s John Mueller predicts technical SEOs will run into more JavaScript in the coming years than they’ve encountered in the 2+ decades of SEO so far.

To that end, for SEOs who are looking to advance their skill set, Mueller believes learning about JavaScript coding is a big opportunity.

Mueller shared these opinions in a Reddit thread, which poses the question: “How much JavaScript do I need to know for SEO?”

With JavaScript frameworks becoming more common, it’s going to be necessary for SEOs to have a more thorough understanding of JS.

Specifically, with respect to learning about JavaScript, Mueller recommends:

• Understanding how JavaScript works
• Understanding where JavaScript works with SEO
• Understanding where JavaScript blocks SEO
• Understanding the effects JavaScript has on other search engines and clients

Those who specialize in technical SEO can make their services more valuable by following the above recommendations, Mueller predicts.

For what it’s worth, another commenter in the Reddit thread offers more technical recommendations that may also be of use to SEOs.

“Realistically, it’s good to understand how JS works. Most SEOs these days simply don’t understand things like Angular and React and so they flip out when they encounter it.

While in many cases JS is not the best way to have a site render if there’s an SEO play involved, it’s not always practical to tell someone to nuke and rebuild. And that’s where understanding options comes into play.”

Therein lies the opportunity for SEOs.

If one SEO tells a client they need to scrap what’s there and build a static HTML site, and another SEO says they can work with the JavaScript framework that’s already in place, who do you think the client is going to prefer working with?