How to make table content appear on Google search

a2011

Hi,

I have a webpage that is entirely based on data shown in datatables, fetched with jquery/json from a mysql table.

The problem is that the information does not seem to be visible for the google robot and therefore the only information about my page on google is the meta information (and this does not give many hits..).

Is there anyway to solve this problem?

//Anders

alexj

You could try using data from the DOM, google will then just parse the whole table. Remember Google bot doesnt support javascript

a2011

Thanks for your reply alexj but I have to admit that I´m not good enough on this to understand... Should I get the data in a different way? Could you give an example?

alexj

Ok, Google doesnt support JavaScript, so it doesnt support the DataTable (because thats JavaScript)

Download this addon: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60 for firefox, then go to Disable > All Javascript, then you will see what Google see's (an empty table because you retrieve the table by JSON (JavaScript)).

I would just create a table with PHP or another scripting language, Google can then just read the table because it is in the HTML.

a2011

Ok, thanks. I'll think of something. But it's a shame since I really like data tables and it will take some effort to build something similar...

alexj

You can use datatables, you need to make the Table with PHP and then use datatables over that table

a2011

So you suggest I print a table using php and then delete it and replace it with datatables? I guess that would be fairly simple but I guess if the connection is slow the first table would be visible for a moment for the user? But maybe that is a small problem...

alexj

Someting like that: http://datatables.net/examples/data_sources/dom.html

a2011

Oh, now I get it. Excellent! This will work just as good for me.

Thank you very much!