Dynamically changing a title with javascript

[jfmonfette]

Hi, I asked our IT team to be able to write custom page titles in our CMS and they came up with a solution that writes the title dynamically with javascript.

When I look on the page, I see the title in the browser, but when I look in the source code, I see the original page title.

I am thinking that Google won't see the new javascript title, so it will not be indexed and have no impact on SEO.

Am I right ?

[Jinx14678]

Probably not, but would run it through a Gbot emulator to make sure, as Google can parse some Jscript now - But not sure if it would in the section

Is PhP not an option? as it is dynamic and renders server side and echoes can be used for page by page basis

[jfmonfette]

Thank you for your answer.

PHP is not an option since our website is running on an IIS server. I cannot fetch it as Googlebot yet because the solution is only in our development environment.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

I agree with Shane - this sounds like a bad idea all around. It's fine to generate the title tag dynamically, but it should generate on the backend or your CMS, before the page renders in a browser.

Google does try to parse javascript for links and content, but it's inconsistent and I'm almost certain they would either see your non-scripted title, or get really confusing signals that could cause trouble later.

The best solution may be to explain to your Devs that Google most likely wont parse the javascript, and see if they can come up with another solution.

Best of luck.

[jfmonfette]

Thank you for your answer.

I convinced our IT team to put build the title field in our CMS to be able to write our own titles.

I was very skeptical of this client side javascript solution too. Now I can work with confidence.