When choosing a citation widget for your website, it’s important to consider its SEO impact: specifically, whether Google will index the citation data. Our Smart Embed Code widget, which utilizes JavaScript technology, ensures that its content is indexed by Google. On the other hand, if a widget employs iframes, be wary. Google’s position on this is unambiguous: for better SEO, it’s advisable to steer clear of using iframes.
Below is a screenshot of Google search using keyword Google recommend iframe seo:
And according to https://www.deanlong.io/
According to Google Search Central (straight from the horse’s mouth from the folks at Google), the use of iFrame content is not at all recommended.
In fact, Google says – in no uncertain terms – that “We recommend that you avoid the use of iFrame’s to display content”.
On the other hand, Javascript widget’s contents are indexed by Google. For instance, when someone searches for the paper “Detection of low-frequency DNA variants by targeted sequencing of the Watson and Crick strands,” they will find our client BioChain’s product page appearing in the search results:
If you enter the page, you will find the citation is listed:
Lesson Learned:
- In terms of SEO, JavaScript based citation widget is highly preferred.
- The citation contents displayed by our Smart Embed Code widget are indexed by Google.