Why SPAs are hard for search engines
A classic SPA (React, Vue, Angular built as client-only) sends one HTML shell and then swaps content in with JavaScript as the user navigates. To a crawler that doesn't run your JS, or runs it late, every route can look like the same empty page.
Even Google, which does render JavaScript, does it on a deferred pass that isn't guaranteed for every URL. Meanwhile the crawlers behind Bing, and the link previews on social platforms, often see nothing but the shell. That means missing titles, missing content, and pages that never enter the index.
- One HTML shell for every route unless something renders on the server
- Content and meta tags injected by JS may be indexed late or not at all
- Client-side routing that doesn't produce real, crawlable URLs
- Per-route titles and descriptions not present in initial HTML
- Social and non-Google crawlers seeing an empty page
Making an SPA indexable
The most reliable fix is to serve real HTML for crawlable routes, through server-side rendering, static prerendering, or a dedicated prerender step for bots. Which one fits depends on how much of the app needs to rank and how the app is built today.
Alongside rendering, the routing and metadata have to behave like a real website: unique URLs per view, per-route titles and canonical tags, proper status codes, and a sitemap listing the routes you want found.
- Add SSR or static prerendering for public, rankable routes
- Use prerendering as a bridge when the app must stay client-side
- Give every indexable view a unique, shareable URL
- Set per-route title, description, canonical, and Open Graph in served HTML
- Return correct status codes (real 404s for missing routes)
- Publish a sitemap and verify rendered HTML in Search Console
More on technical seo
Frequently asked questions
Does my whole app need to be indexable?
Usually not. The logged-in, interactive parts of an app don't need to rank at all. The pages that matter for SEO are your public, content-bearing routes. We focus rendering effort there and leave the app internals as a client-side experience.
Is prerendering the same as server-side rendering?
They're related but not identical. Prerendering typically produces static HTML snapshots (sometimes served only to bots), while SSR renders fresh HTML on each request. Prerendering is often the lighter-touch bridge for an existing SPA; SSR is a deeper change. We pick based on your stack and how dynamic the content is.
How do I check what search engines see?
The URL Inspection tool in Search Console shows the rendered HTML Google generates for a URL. If your content and title are missing there, or if different routes all show the same shell, the SPA rendering needs work.