Making websites javascript heavy seems to be all the rage these days. Some sites like Gawker (and related sites by the company) have been heavily criticized for their javascript heavy redesign. While others like Twitter have been mostly praised for their work. Both sites are very similar in URL structure and functionality. But did you know that Google Bot can’t seem to accurately capture a screenshot for either site?
Gawker
Before you panic and exaggerate these findings, keep in mind that Google can crawl these sites just fine. The problem is only with the screen capture and preview that is shown in the Google SERPs. I guess the real question is, who is at fault here? Googlebot for not being able to grab an accurate screenshot or the site developers for going a bit overboard on javascript?
One reply on “Google instant previews for Twitter & Gawker are broken”
Howdy, some Gawker stories have an old Google preview with blank content. We’ve since fixed this issue and all new stories (as of 2 months ago) are rendered with full content, for example: http://cl.ly/833p
Thanks for pointing this out!
Cheers,
Greg Takayama
Gawker Media Product