JavaScript back buttons & SEO don’t mix
Have you ever seen a website with a “Back to search results” button or something similar? These links normally take you from a product or destination page back to the search results or category page where you came from. Here’s one for you to try.
At least that’s the idea.
In the real world what the developers who make use of onClick=”history.go(-1) are doing is making an assumption that you made your way to the current page in the exact manner that they intended you to.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve arrived at a website via Google to be confronted with a back button which takes me straight out of the site and back to the search results.
Top tip – never use the JavaScript back button.
Post category: Search Engine Optimisation Tweet
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
Read the 5 comments below, or add your own!
It is not recommendable also to use java script back button because we want to turn new visitors to blogs into regular readers this javscript doesn’t help that way.
Good tip! I don’t go for ‘back’ as anchor text, I prefer post / article titles in anchor texts.
I find that a big problem not at the development stage but while doing the information arquitecture of a website.
Many times the concept is explained as “this is a back button” when instead people should explain that that certain button will lead the user to a specific page.
I think the back button is supposed to take you back one page. If you don’t intend to return to where you arrive from then why not hit the home link or products or something similar. In my dev world ‘back means back’
One feature I like instead of the back button is to have a breadcrumb trail at the top of each page.
1 trackbacks
May 27, 2009 at 5:15pm