Google: Prerendering With GoogleBot You Don’t Need All Your Site’s Functionality To Work

Martin Splitt from Google said it is not necessary to have all your site’s functionality operate like it would for a user, when you are prerendering for GoogleBot. He said you don’t have to worry about this for Google Search purposes.

The question was asked on Twitter where Andrew Cilio asked “when prerendering for Gbot, does all site functionality need to work as it would for a user? Does add to cart need to actually add to cart? Does the mobile menu need to open when clicked on?”

Martin Splitt responded “Not for Google Search.”

Not for Google Search.

— Martin Splitt 💉💉 (@g33konaut) September 1, 2021

The second part of his question was do you have to have these aspects work for GoogleBot when prerendering? “Testing and the content is in the DOM, but does not “work” when you go to open the hamburger menu for instance on pre-rendered version. Some things like “read more” and dropdowns do not work. Will this be an issue for indexing and/or ranking?”

The answer was no.

No.

— Martin Splitt 💉💉 (@g33konaut) September 1, 2021

Forum discussion at Twitter.